Chapter 57

“Boris, dear, would you mind fetching me three gnarl roots? They should be in the eastern section of the garden. Shadow, stir a little faster, please. Firefly, fan the flames a bit higher, thank you.” Kallara spoke while setting up a complicated set of glassware that would not look out of place in a modern chemistry laboratory, minus the need for electric plugs (*magic*).

Before going off to practice laser tag, Fey and her party-mates had dropped their pets off so that the healer could keep an eye on the mischievous creatures. In exchange for her supervision, the pets were assisting Kallara in her potion-making. Other than Squishy, who floated inscrutably in his glass tank, the pets were remarkably helpful, collecting ingredients, peeling, chopping, grinding, measuring, stirring, bottling, and doing whatever else was needed with meticulous attention to detail. Kallara was taking advantage of the extra manpower (pet-power?) to make some of her more complex recipes. The pets’ diligence was paying off in the form of dexterity and intelligence gains.

Amethyst was in charge of collecting water, hopping back and forth between the tree-shop and the stream (and woe betide to any hapless player that attempted to bother her). At level 9, her Osmosis allowed her to expand to ten times her original size, but with the number of potions Kallara was brewing, that still necessitated quite a number of trips.

Amethyst was not bothered by the exertion, cheerfully visiting the stream as many times as necessary to fill Kallara’s flasks, bottles, and cauldrons.

Amethyst was likewise untroubled by regular human morality. She saw nothing wrong with sneaking into Kallara’s potion stores and absorbing a dose of each type. After all, she synthesized a replacement dose with Potion Slime, so no harm done.

Though the other Feypets also saw nothing wrong with Amethyst’s actions, they made sure to keep Kallara distracted while the slime sneaked into the potion shop’s cupboards and drawers.

***

“Hey Kallara, how’s it going? Did the pets behave?” Fey asked as she entered the potion shop.

Kallara looked up from the seat where she was leisurely perusing a book. “Fey! They were quite helpful, thank you.” There were five potions simmering, cooling, or fermenting as directed by their recipes. With nothing to do, the pets disposed themselves around the store-tree, playing quiet games or napping as suited their natures. “And how did your practice go?”

Amethyst hopped into view. Her bubble, usually carried at a jaunty angle, looked distinctly droopy. She squeaked guiltily.

Fey’s eyes narrowed. Completely forgetting to answer Kallara, she picked up her slime and spoke in a severe tone. “What did you do?”

In answer, Amethyst secreted a potion.

Fey’s lips compressed as she began to get an inkling of the kind of trouble her pet had gotten herself into. Fey’s memory was not quite eidetic[i], but more than reliable enough to be certain that speed tonic was not a potion Amethyst was supposed to know the recipe for.

Fey pulled up the Potion Slime ability in her menu and was unsurprised to see the list of available potions expanded to the point that it looked like the entire inventory of a potion shop. There were now several sorting and search options to go with the list, and the default was to order them by mana consumption. Grimly certain of what she would find, Fey scrolled all the way to the bottom:

Fey gasped. The mana requirement was even higher than what she had feared. Amethyst’s attribute build strongly favoured intelligence and willpower, but her maximum mana was only around 3500 at level 44. It would not reach a hundred thousand even at level 100 or 150, which was the upper limit of what Fey could expect to reach in a semi-reasonable amount of time.

Fey slumped and turned to a curious Kallara, head bowed in penitence. On her palm, Amethyst mirrored the posture.

“I am so sorry. Amethyst has been sneaking into your potions and learning recipes for her Potion Slime ability. I assume she replaced the doses she absorbed, but she got into your strength elixir and doesn’t have even close to the mana stores she would need to replace it.”

Kallara looked unpleasantly surprised. “Oh…” She turned to the shelves and began checking her stocks. “Yes, it appears that one dose of each type of potion has been replaced by one not of my brewing.” Singing a quick trill of notes, she unearthed (un-wooded?) a hidden shelf holding bottles that looked more ornate and expensive than the goods on public display (which really made one wonder how Amethyst had gotten in there).

Kallara lifted out a single empty vial; Amethyst had had the common sense to stop absorbing potions after encountering one she could not replace. The dregs of potion remaining at the bottom glowed a rich amber hue. The healer pursed her lips. “The ingredients for a proper strength elixir are quite rare and must be aged for several years. I imagine the mana requirements to synthesize it with Potion Slime run into the hundreds of thousands?”

Fey cringed. Amethyst followed suit. “Yes…”

“And I don’t suppose you can afford to pay for it either? A dose is valued at 5 million gold.”

When that incomprehensibly high price was said aloud, the other Feypets all attempted to make themselves invisible. (The glooms were quite successful. Boris, not so much.)

Fey was now as close as she could be to curling up in a fetal position while still remaining standing. “No…”

Kallara was at a loss for how to respond. She would have penalized almost any other player with a large gain in infamy and a permanent ban from the store, but Fey had a large store of favour with the healer.

Mimi spoke. She had entered the tree-shop behind Fey, but between the drama with Amethyst and Mimi’s own quiet presence, had remained largely unnoticed. “I’ll pay for it.”

Fey and Kallara stared at the sniper in surprise, while Amethyst perked up at the sign that someone would save her from her predicament.

Kallara recovered first. “That is very kind of you,” she said with a smile.

Fey snapped out of the shock that someone was, one, her level and had five million gold, and two, willing to spend it to for her sake. “Waitwaitwait, that’s too much, Mimi,” she protested.

Mimi shrugged. “I have the money.”

“But…”

Mimi shrugged again. “It’s just money. We can always make more.”

“…” It was the “we” that decided Fey. She knew she would have no qualms about borrowing such a sum from Sirena if the mermaid was possessed of so much gold; after all, it was just game money. She had only known Mimi for a couple of hours, but sensed the same kind of deep friendship forming. Finally, Fey said, “I have one million. You can lend me four.” She had not planned on ever using the gold Leandriel had tricked her into taking, but an emergency was an emergency. Besides, now that he was not returning Magic to her, she had no way to force the angel to take the money back.

Mimi indicated her agreement with a tilt of her head and the pair made their way to the bank.

“How did you make so much gold, anyways?” Fey asked.

“Trading.”

“Trading what?”

“Equipment, crafting materials, whatever people want.”

“Where do you get the stuff to trade?”

“Hunting.”

“So, like, fulfilling notice board requests?”

“No. You get much better prices on Ivory Exchange[ii].”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the trading website for Fantasia. You can post things to sell or requests for items. It’s run by VirtualRealities, so you can exchange items and gold without having to meet in the game.”

“Huh.” Fey pondered her own terrible record for making money in games and resolved to learn from Mimi’s example.

Mimi accessed her bank account and withdrew four mithril 1,000,000g coins, then waited for Fey to make her own withdrawal.

“How much do you have saved, anyways?” Fey asked on the way back.

“5.1 million.”

Fey was struck with sentimentality that Mimi had been about to wipe out her savings to help Fey out. It was the quiet sacrifices that touched her the most, when people did kind things with no expectation of praise. She knew that she was being too forward for a newly-made acquaintance, but she could not resist giving Mimi a hug. “You’re the best.”

Mimi did not look offended. Her smile was more a matter of the eyes than the mouth as she made a quiet sound of acknowledgement.

Fey and Mimi left the potion shop with an empty elixir bottle and a herd of guilty-looking Feypets (*complicit*). Unintended spending over with, they could now focus on the task they had originally wanted the pets for, which was to train. Their team’s average level allowed for 13 more level gains while remaining within the same level bracket, which was exactly enough for the level 44 Fey and level 43 Mimi to both reach level 50 and gain their next class skill. (How convenient.) Blade and Sirena had been left to improve their skills without levelling up, while Fey and Mimi were to level up and finish getting feat points as quickly as possible so that they could resume practicing laser tag.

“So how do you normally train?” Fey asked.

“Boss hunting.”

“How do you know when the boss is going to show up?”

Mimi shrugged. “If you kill enough regular monsters.”

“I assume you don’t do this with monsters your own level?”

“Sometimes. Depends on what items I’m gathering.”

“Butbutbut, the boss,” Fey protested.

Expression not in the least worried, Mimi said, “Everything dies if you score enough critical hits.”

Fey paused for a moment to consider that statement and found that she could not disagree. “Okay. What monster are we hunting?”

“Just a minute.” Mimi logged out to check the Ivory Exchange. A minute later, she was back. “Jade golems,” she announced. “Level 47.”

Fey gulped, reminded herself that dying was okay in a game, and followed Mimi into the forest.

***

Mimi perched high up in a tree, hidden from sight. Her legs were hooked into its bark with Climbing Claws, leaving her hands free to handle her crossbow. The weapon had a much more powerful draw than its small size suggested and required her full strength to reload.

Below, Fey and her pets wreaked havoc among a small cluster of jade golems. Mimi had expected Fey would use an offensive ability that would allow her to cut through their stone bodies, but instead, the majority of the assassin’s attacks caused blunt damage as she used her steel-shod feet to crack and shatter the automatons. Her blows were considerably stronger than her slender build would suggest was possible, and Mimi could see the stepwise increase in force as Fey’s kicking skills improved.

The iron boar Boris likewise used his feet to crack the golems’ shells, but in his case, it was more a matter of sheer strength and weight than any technique. So tiny in comparison, the slime Amethyst was nonetheless causing just as much damage as her fellow pet, loud cracks sounding as her bubble-arm left narrow but extremely deep indents in stone.

The little glooms, unsuited to fighting these particular monsters, had been assigned to collect loot. Mimi could not tell the six shadow-creatures apart, but Fey had told her that the one returning her crossbow bolts was called Midnight. She remained silent in order to maintain her cover, but gave the bunny-like pet a pat on the head in thanks as it dropped off another handful of quarrels. Midnight pressed its head against her knee in affection, then crept back down the tree as easily and silently as it had arrived.

Tucking the bolts away, Mimi raised her crossbow and sighted down its length. With a moment of concentration, she charged the loaded bolt with archery buffs, a sequence of two spells. Mana Pierce increased its penetration, while Explosive Shot magnified the damage severalfold. This combination, when shot into a critical area, was sufficient to defeat regular monsters in one attack. The two buffs consumed enough mana that she could only shoot once every few minutes, but her damage output was not much less than Fey’s – minus the pets’ contributions, of course.

Mimi picked her target, a newly-spawned golem that still had full health. She breathed in. There was a moment of perfect stillness as her world narrowed to the single point on the golem’s body that would cause the most damage. At the same time, she was aware of every tiny movement and breeze that might affect her aim. She pulled the trigger.

With a small explosion, the area around the golem’s animating crystal was destroyed, and it slumped, lifeless, to the ground. The crystal itself was valuable and thankfully harder than the stone around it, durable enough to survive intact.

Mimi relaxed slightly as the rest of the world came rushing back. She had perfected the process of aiming to the point that she had formed the ability Focused Aim, which assisted her in shooting under even the most challenging conditions. Amid the cacophony of shattering stone caused by Fey, Boris, and Amethyst, the sound of Mimi’s exploding projectile was barely noticeable and the trio continued fighting without a pause. The glooms got to work, retrieving the crystal and adding it to the growing pile off to one side of the fighting, along with any coins and other loot that could be scavenged.

Mimi reloaded and again sighted down her crossbow’s length, keeping a watchful eye over the combat below. Unless pressed, she would wait until her mana was almost full to shoot again, but she always kept enough reserves that she could intervene if her friend needed help.

Footnotes:

[i] of, relating to, or constituting visual imagery vividly experienced and readily reproducible with great accuracy and in great detail. This is the more formal term for the colloquial “photographic memory”

[ii] The name of this market is a reference to the fact that Fantasia’s main continent is shaped like an elephant. The author does not endorse killing animals in order to steal their teeth.