“Me a hunter? No, no I’m the apprentice of a knight, but I’m still a novice too.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think anyone would have a class yet.”

I put my hand out to offer a handshake, the palm was facing slightly upwards, when she took it, I kneeled and kissed her hand, it was soft and her fingers delicate, every part of her exuded beauty.

“This one's name is Ezekiel, it’s a pleasure to meet a princess so beautiful.”

Looking up with one eye, I saw that she was blushing, even the tips of her ears had gone red, it seems she wasn’t used to being complemented directly, odd, since she’s definitely one of the most beautiful women I had ever met, incidentally Ellie was too, but she was an NPC.

“Would you grant this young knight the honour of knowing your name?”

“Uuuu… Alexis… you’re really muscular…”

It seems she was completely out of it, I had laid it on thick to take the pace into my own hands, but I didn’t expect it to be this effective, as if a spell had ended she snapped back to reality.

“Aaahh, I mean Lexicon, my character’s name is Lexicon and you’re really strong for a novice aahh.”

She said burying her face in her hands, her ears still red, standing up I said as though muttering to myself, but loud enough for her to hear.

“Alexis, I’ll engrave it into my heart.”

“So tell me.”

I said reaching my hand out towards the little bird on her shoulder, for a second it looked like it would bite my finger, but after looking me in the eyes it instantly calmed down, I began to scratch the underside of its neck and it leaned upwards into it, this bird actually had a third leg, how odd.

“What’s this little one’s name?”

“That’s surprising.”

She said looking at me from between her fingers.

“Branwen doesn’t usually like people, other than my sister she bites everyone.”

“She probably feels that we’re very similar.”

I said giving my best smile.

She took her hands off her face, still staring into my eyes it seems she was no longer flustered.

“So what brings you two lovely ladies to this neck of the woods?”

“I’m here on a quest to get my class, there’s a necromancer here, so I need to stop his profane magic.”

How convenient, I need to spend more time with her to get her to form a guild with me, and we just so happen to have the same quest.

“A necromancer you say, how disturbing, my master has tasked with me with fighting and exterminating whatever is forming this small goblin army, I’m pretty sure it’s what you’re looking for is the same thing as me, so I’d love to take you along.”

“YES!” She screamed eagerly all of a sudden “*ahem* I mean, yes I too would love to join your party Sir Ezekiel.”

You have invited Lexicon to join your party.

Lexicon level 9, has accepted you invitation, party has been created, experience will be shared equally between nearby teammates, and loot options set to need before greed.

“hmmmmm, Alexis?”

“Yes?” She popped to attention as though she was wasn’t paying attention.

“Does your quest have a time limit?”

“No, but I have to be in the party that kills the necromancer first otherwise the quest will fail.”

“Well you see, as we get closer to the center of the forest where the castle is, the enemies levels begin to go upwards towards level 30, so let’s spend a couple of days grinding to get your level up a bit, we’ll need the extra health and mana.”

“Yeah that’s fine, it’s better that way, we’ll get more used to playing together as well.”

“Exactly my thoughts, so what kind of skills do you have.”

“Well I have three heals, the first has almost no casting time, heals a decent amount about 400 hp and costs 100 mana has a cooldown of 3 seconds, the next has a casting time of about 5 seconds, heals 110 hp every second for 15 seconds, costs 200 mana and has a cooldown of 30 seconds, the next heals about 4000 hp, has a casting time of 15 seconds, costs 600 mana and has a cooldown of 2 minutes, I also have a minor cure spell that costs 300 mana but can heal injuries and afflictions, lastly I also have a turn undead spell that will cause undead to be stunned for 20 seconds if cast on them, or can hide a person from the undead for 2 minutes until they take an offensive action, this costs 500 mana.”

Wow, I was flabbergasted, if I didn't have a pokerface my jaw would have dropped, she truly was an elite, her white gear must be some kind of enchanted priest gear, there’s likely a bunch of other stuff but I didn’t need to get too into it, but damn 4000 in one heal, I just told Alexis my skillset and we got off to work.

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A few days had past, of Alexis and I grinding, since experience was split fifty fifty she would need double the amount of mobs as I did to reach my level, so when we had to log off we added each other to our friend’s list, this could only be done in person, in real life it was two days but it was closer to eight in game and she had begun to become more comfortable with me, we talked about our lives, for example she was aged 17 and went to a boarding school for girls, naturally I told her some things about myself too, we even found out we had some common interests, like ice skating, personally I got into from roller skating and my little sister did it so I went with her, naturally I said we should go together sometime and got a blush.

Other than some pleasantries, or rather me improving our relationship, grinding was going well, since I wasn’t taking much damage and my sword was self-repairing we didn’t need to return to town, sadly the goblin population couldn’t keep up with our grind, but I managed to level my steal up while boosting Alexis, oh right one other thing, naturally we had satiety and had to eat, I was gonna just feed her the goblin meat and tell her about it afterwards, but you never know with girls, I once lost a girlfriend because I fed her rabbit without saying what it was, but with a slightly green face she said okay, she was a trooper and ate it no problem, in fact she enjoyed it so much we cut into our efficiency to have an unnecessary food break, I guess she realised there was no weight gain in the game, she was surprised I was such a good cook, to which I said “The way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach.”, which received the customary giggle and a slight blush afterwards.

“Ding!”

“Congrats, that’s level 17 now?”

“Yup.”

“Alright let’s move into the castle now, it should be no problem with me tanking and you healing.”

“Ah, here take my mace, it’s silver, swords won’t work against the undead.”

“It’s no problem, my sword’s a bit special.”

“Okie dokes, if you say so.”

She then put away the mace and pulled out a pure white staff, it was just a bo staff like stick, but it had a slight glow.

“I’ll equip this staff since I’m sitting back and healing, healing spells can also be used on the undead to damage them, if it’s a deadly hit, that’s a magic only effect where it doesn’t have enough resistance to your spell and you deal 10% or more of its HP you get an additional effect, for holy spells it’ll reduce their stats by 20% until they recover health equivalent to the heal, and any additional heals will add to the amount it needs to recover so we can keep their stats down, ummm…”

She bit her lip and looked down, clearly regretting something.

“I have a unique race, it’s called Sun Fey, I have a solar power bar that charges to 100 when I’m in sunlight, for every 1 SP I get 0.5% to my intellect, however I can use 20 SP to charge a holy element spell making it twice as effective, umm.”

She started twiddling her fingers

“I’m really sorry for not…”

I pulled her towards me, pushing her head into my chest and hugging her with one had I started patting her head with the other.

“Don’t apologize, it’s not a problem, you didn’t need to tell me, I’m glad you trust me enough now to tell me about it.”

I felt her snuggle her forehead into my chest.

“The truth is I have a unique race that I neglected to mention as well, it’s Dhampir, I lose 20% of my constitution and health during the day, during the night I gain 25% to my strength and dexterity, doubled under the fullmoon, I also get extra charm bonus when anyone looks into my eyes.”

Bait taken, she looked up at them.

“Extra charm when they look into your…”

“Ahhh.”

Realising she was in my embrace she pushed away, her face once again bright red.

“Umm, let’s go to the castle!”

She shouted before turning around and running off…

In the wrong direction.

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So sweet I think my teeth are crawling a bit, btw I'm gonna enter the may competition about space cowboys, be sure to read, am I allowed to link it at the end of a chapter when I've submitted?