Arwyn dragged herself home Thursday evening, physically exhausted and sweaty. Due to her upcoming exam, she had decided to start going to tae kwon do classes twice a week. Her body was reacting the way it always did to increased exertion, lending her the energy and then charging interest like a loan shark. Arwyn did not speak Korean, but it seemed to be the language her calves were currently using to swear at her (because tae kwon do is Korean).

She was faced with her usual dilemma after an exhausting class: shower first or food first? Food almost always won because she did not wish to drown in the shower due to lack of energy.

Arwyn logged onto her laptop while she ate. She deleted some emails and browsed the news between bites.

Her messenger application flashed:

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars...- Look!

Leah sent a link to a video. Arwyn clicked it and proceeded to watch a transformation sequence that seemed pretty typical of every anime containing magical girl powers that Arwyn had ever seen(1). The difference was, instead of cartoon art, the graphics were incredibly realistic. The title over the video read: “Fantasia – ForeverHeaven’s Ex-quip”.

Arwyn snorted. It was one thing to have a silly avatar name in normal games, but in virtual reality, you actually had to listen to people call you by name.

Getting back to the conversation, Arwyn wrote:

ArwynTheElf – That’s not what happened when I used Ex-quip

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars...- You have to set it in your Abilities menu or use the transformation sequence designer on the VirtualRealities website

ArwynTheElf – I don’t really see the point. I mean, that’s a whole minute where someone could be shooting you

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars...- You’re invincible during the transformation. I checked

ArwynTheElf – Meh.

ArwynTheElf – Oh. You just want to design my transformation sequence.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars...- You’re so smart ^_^. Now log in for me so I can.

ArwynTheElf – Fine. I won’t use it if it’s too stupid.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars...- As if. It’s gonna be AWEsome

Arwyn sighed and went to grab her game helmet. She plugged it into her laptop and used it to login to the VirtualRealities website while Leah did something complicated with their Internet connections so that she could gain remote access to Arwyn’s account.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars...- Purrfect :3

ArwynTheElf – Are you going to be late onto Fantasia tonight?

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars...- Naw. Usual time. This will take at least a week to design

ArwynTheElf – You have too much free time.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars...- I have no time for your petty complaints. Time to choose the music!

ArwynTheElf – I’m going to go take a shower. Later

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars...- See ya!

Arwyn dragged herself out of her desk chair and into the shower, her muscles stiff after sitting still. After turning the water to almost painfully hot, her body became relaxed and floppy instead.

Arwyn flopped her way out of the shower and got dressed for bed. The state of almost-numb exhaustion she often reached after tae kwon do class was actually fairly pleasant for someone whose mind was constantly in overdrive, but it was not conducive for any tasks that required concentration or willpower. Arwyn curled up with a cup of hot chocolate and the third of the five books she had checked out of the library.

Several hours later, Arwyn paused in the middle of a chapter, glancing at the clock. She found it easier to stop reading in the middle of a chapter because chapter ends were always designed to have cliff-hanger elements that prodded you to keep going. Snagging a random piece of paper from the nearest table, she bookmarked her place and went to log in to Fantasia.

◊◊◊

It was now Fey’s habit to check her friend list upon logging in. As usual, Leandriel’s name glowed green. Blade was likewise online, while Sirena had yet to appear. This was fairly typical for a game night.

Also typical, but never ordinary, was Leandriel’s nightly greeting and short conversation with her. Fey walked to the accessory shop while exchanging PMs with the angel.

Fey entered the accessory tree-shop wearing a much more agreeable expression than the first time she had visited. As promised, Treisillia was waiting with a completed saddle. The metal-and-leather contraption was much heavier than Fey would want to carry around on a constant basis, but Boris bore the weight easily.

Thanking the shop-keeper, Fey set out into the forest to complete her rogue quest.

Walking along the forest trails, Fey pondered the task ahead. It was extremely difficult to kill monsters of the same level in one blow, and even more difficult to remain undetected while attacking. Fey found it rather unfair that she had to complete a task that required rogue skills in order to join the rogue class and learn the skills. (Now that’s a true ‘prerequisite’.)

As she walked (and pondered), Fey practiced with her throwing stars. Pinching one point between her thumb and the side of her index finger, she sent them flying with an overhand flick of the wrist.

Her aim was terrible to the point that the monsters she aimed for did not always notice they were under attack. (She did occasionally hit one far to the side of the one she was aiming for.) Without the help of the glooms, she would have lost her stars to the undergrowth after the first throw.

With enough repetition, her aim progressed from ‘terrible’ to ‘pretty bad’ (i.e. the monsters actually noticed they were under attack). When the monsters retaliated, she defeated them with kicks and stabs.

Though her stars were still completely ineffective at inflicting a non-negligible amount of damage, Fey’s practice did not go entirely unrewarded:

‘Pretty bad’ had now improved to ‘mediocre’ and Fey was now reliably hitting her target with every throw. She added Bleed to increase the damage from the minor flesh wounds she generally inflicted, and the resulting fight gave her the opportunity to exercise her other skills. The monsters above level 20 started growing to a decent size so that fighting resembled actual combat rather than bullying small creatures.

Fey was training her skills effectively, but she was not any closer to completing her rogue quest. Fighting her way deeper into the forest, she was almost to the monsters at and above her level, so she needed to figure out a plan soon.

Fey stopped beside a tree. (In the forest, it’s impossible not to stop beside a tree.) Placing her hand on its trunk, she looked up consideringly. Not including her slug-hunting adventures (in Chapter 6), Fey had never climbed a tree. The ancient giants populating the Elvenwood were an intimidating way to start, their lowest branches well beyond her reach.

“I don’t supposed you could reel me up there?” Fey asked Amethyst jokingly.

Amethyst squeaked cheerfully and hopped from Fey’s shoulder onto Inkblot’s back. The gloom carried the slime up the tree to the lowest branch, gliding upwards the way a shadow did with a moving light source.

Extending her bubble-arm to its fullest length, Amethyst looped it once around the branch and let the rest dangle towards the ground. She squeaked again. (“Ready.”)

Fey looked up at the slime, whose bubble-arm was still too high to reach. “I don’t think—”

An excited squeak interrupted her. Inkblot emerged from Fey’s backpack holding her rope. (Really, that thing is super useful. People should carry rope around more often.) Carrying one end, the gloom raced back up the tree, over the branch, and returned once again to the ground.

Boris trotted over without being asked and Inkblot tied the rope to his saddle, using the butterfly knot commonly used to tie shoelaces.

“Where did you learn that?” Fey asked.

Inkblot squeaked, reminding Fey of the time the gloom had stolen a player’s shoelace (in Chapter 23).

Fey laughed, shaking her head at her pets’ resourcefulness (or whatever you call it). “Unfortunately, that one is going to come undone if you pull on the end of the rope.” She demonstrated a more secure knot.

Inkblot proffered the free end of the rope and Fey accepted with a grateful thank-you. With Boris supporting her weight, Fey walked herself up the tree and onto the lowest branch. Amethyst wrapped her bubble-arm around Fey’s ankle as a living safety rope.

“Thanks, guys,” Fey called down to her pets, putting the rope away after a gloom untied the knot. “Think you could drive some monsters into throwing range?”

With a chorus of squeaks and a single grunt, the pets ventured away.

Fey crawled among the tree branches, looking for a good place to settle and throw stars at the ground. As if playing a strange game of Statue(2), Amethyst stayed securely wrapped around a branch while Fey was moving, then pulled herself forward when Fey paused. Finally, Fey settled into a (relatively) comfortable position and poisoned herself while waiting for monsters to arrive.

Fey heard the monsters before she saw them. The glooms had adopted the method of ‘poke and run’ in order to lure what appeared to be lynx made of living wood into the vicinity. In contrast, Boris had used his intimidating size to chase a herd of giant chipmunks toward her.

The two groups of monsters collided; while the giant chipmunks were larger than the wood lynx, the lynx had sharper claws and made their displeasure felt. The glooms took advantage of this distraction in order to slip out of the way and headed out to lure more monsters. Likewise, Boris veered off his Charge to do the same.

There were now plenty of targets below Fey. She threw a star down, the change in orientation making her clumsy. Of her first five throws, three hit a monster, causing it to look around before being drawn back into the fray. Fey was mostly hidden by the thick tree branch she lay on, so she was hard to spot unless she moved.

When the glooms returned with more monsters to add to the chaos, Fey had Shadow stay behind to collect her throwing stars. The gloom slid unobtrusively between the monsters, just a dark puddle in an area that had more than one streak of blood on the ground. Shadow did not just collect the throwing stars and also dropped off a hefty handful of coins with each delivery.

Fey’s throwing accuracy and power slowly improved but she failed to do the kind of damage required to get credit for a kill. She added Bleed to her attacks, which added a little more damage, and then poison. She chose to use poison mushroom poison rather than a faster-acting one because its side effect was blurred vision, which seemed like a good thing if she was trying not to be noticed.

Things went smoothly until Fey hit the same wood lynx for a third time. It decided that the threat from above was too great to ignore, even if it could not see its attacker. Long claws digging easily into bark, it began to climb Fey’s tree.

“[Censored word],” Fey swore, gripping her branch tightly and trying to figure out how she was going to defend herself without falling to a messy death.

Amethyst squeaked cheerfully. (“I got it!”) Releasing her grip on Fey’s ankle, she Whipped her bubble out with terrifying speed.

The wood lynx failed to see it coming. The bubble impacted with an audible crack that made Fey wince. Not just stunned but truly unconscious and possibly comatose, the lynx dropped heavily to the ground, a visible dent in its skull.

“Did I know you could do that?” Fey asked her oldest pet. Amethyst squeaked cheerfully (“Dunno”) and regained her grip on Fey’s ankle.

The strength of Amethyst’s bubble-arm had long been unbalanced relative to her body weight. She could generate force equivalent to Fey’s kicks, but had the mass of a large orange (or small grapefruit, if you prefer). Because of this, she had to carefully modulate and angle her Whip to avoid flying backwards with each strike.

Securely anchored to a massive tree, all such considerations became moot. (Even if you dislike fancy vocabulary, you have to admit that “moot” is a fun word.) Amethyst had just demonstrated the full, deadly potential of her Whip, which helped the skill gain experience faster than a carefully controlled activation.

No longer worrying about being spotted, Fey threw her stars as fast as Shadow could retrieve them. It took over a hundred throws, but she managed to hit a giant chipmunk at exactly the right place between the base of its skull and its first vertebra, getting an instant kill.

Fey decided that she had had enough practice; much more and she would level up. Dropping to the ground, she finished off the remaining monsters, collected the loot, and headed off to find the level 32 monster territory. Another hike up a tree and she was ready for action.

The level 32 monster in the Elvenwood was a species of wolf that had grass for fur. A pack of these wolves was currently eating the carcass of an unfortunate deer that had wandered into their territory. Fey (awkwardly) climbed from tree to tree until she was within throwing range. Settling into a good spot for throwing, Fey nudged Amethyst with her free foot, and the slime squeaked.

The wolves looked up at the sound but were quickly distracted by Boris and the glooms as they charged in at the signal. (If we want to be honest here, it was Boris providing all of the distraction.) Rather than trying to kill the wolves, they aimed to distract and confuse them long enough for Fey to get the kill.

Fey was still not completely sure of her aim, so she tried to target wolves who were not immediately next to one of her pets. This tactic was less successful than she liked, as the wolves would look up at the attack; from her current angle, she was not completely hidden from view, and she would be spotted before the wolf’s attention was taken by one of the pets.

Hoping that she would not hit one of her pets, Fey aimed carefully and threw at a wolf just as it was slammed aside by Boris’ shoulder. It worked, the small impact of the throwing star disguised by the much-larger impact of a six-Fey iron boar. (Apparently a Fey is a standard unit of mass now.) After some internal debate, Fey added furyweed poison to her throwing stars because it had the highest and fastest damage of Amethyst’s repertoire. The affected wolves went on berserker frenzies, but Fey’s pets managed to avoid major injury.

Fey failed to land any critical hits, but by the time the wolf pack was defeated, her quest progress menu showed two kills. Fey (awkwardly) clambered between trees to find another pack, foreseeing a long and tiring day.

A couple of hours later, Fey was still in the trees when Sirena sent her a PM:

Fey explained the warrior trainers’ recommendations and her current quest.

Very late in the Fantasia night, Fey returned to the rogue trainer area, tired and sore but triumphant.

The area was even creepier by moonlight.

“So you’ve returned.”

Fey jumped and turned. R’shelle was directly beside her, inside the invisible bubble that people generally kept between each other.

“I’ve completed my task.”

“And how did you manage that?”

Fey patted Boris and the glooms that sat on his back. “Very good distractions.” If she was tired from staying in awkward positions in trees all day, they were exhausted from actually having to run around and fight for the same period.

R’shelle smiled. “Sound and stealth are relative. I am glad you know that. Truly, you belong to the rogue class.”

Fey considered complaining about the measly experience reward compared to the difficulty of the quest but decided it would be futile. The reward for the initial class quest remained the same whether or not the trainers decided to make it harder.

A long knife and sheath appeared in R’shelle’s hands. “I grant you the honorary rogue knife,” she handed it to Fey, “though your current weapons greatly exceed it in quality.”

“I will also teach you the basic ability Shadow Cloak.”

Fey nodded to show she was listening and R’shelle continued.

“First, gather your energy tightly in your centre. You should be used to concentrating your mana from your warrior training. Yes, like that. Now, invert it.”

Something about the way R’shelle said “invert” opened a locked pathway inside Fey’s mind and the colour of her mana changed from a bright glow to a dark shadow. (It was still purple, though.)

“Very good. Now release it slightly to diffuse around you and hide your presence.”

Fey released the ability, shivering at the way the magic felt.

“This is a passive ability that requires no mana consumption and will not improve with use. The size of the shadow cloak you can cast depends directly on the size of your combined mana and health pools. If you concentrate it close to your body, it will muffle sound as well as light. While it is active, your mana will be inverted, and you cannot activate mana-requiring skills unless they are specialized rogue skills that also consume inverted mana. Questions?”

Fey blinked at the inundation of information. “Uh, no.”

R’shelle smiled. “Welcome to the shadows. Come find me when you have enough rogue feats to advance.” This time, she disappeared Cheshire Cat-style, her smile fading last.

So creeeeeepy. Fey decided that she had worked hard enough for the day and went to hang out and eat at Tallen’s tavern until it was time to log out.

(1) As far as the author is aware, Sailor Moon is the prototypical example of magical girl transformation sequences

(2) In this children’s game, players must attempt to sneak up on the ‘it’ player while his back is turned. If the ‘it’ player turns and looks, players must freeze until the ‘it’ player turns away again. Players caught moving by the ‘it’ player are sent back to the starting line. This game has many names and variations of the rules throughout the world.