A Series of Unfortunate Events

          There I was, slinking through the underbrush, on my way to put an arrow through the skull of a wolf just to win a bet. You see I, The Great Archmagis Leona Grace Xerinquall, knew that magic was supreme. This, however, did not detract from the fact that a stealth archer was supremely superior to anything else in pure single target damage. 

Yes, I was a level 863 Archmagis. No, I did not have any levels whatsoever in archery or stealth. Yet, by nature of natural stats, a sneak attack critical, and good aim, it took only one shot from the hunting bow and iron arrow to drop the level 265 dire wolf.

“HAH! Take that, Grelda! I told you stealth archers are the best! Do you think any other beginner weapon could drop a level 250 in one shot?” I looked behind me, gloating, to see my new ‘apprentice’ holding a sour face and grumbling under her breath. “As if any archer would have a 12x critical multiplier, Master.” The grumpy level 429 Orc Sorcerer was already upholding her part of the deal. 

'Heh,' I savored the feel of that word and of course, as her Master, I had to turn this into a teachable moment. I most definitely did not have a disgusting grin. Nope. “Tsk tsk, oh apprentice of mine, you should know that any decently geared stealth archer at level 200+ with the right build, gear, and stats could do this easily.” I said with a wave of my hand. I wasn't going to tell her that I had enchanted the arrow to guarantee I did at least twice the creature's health in damage.

I walked over to the felled beast and placed it in my newly developed subspace spell - not to hide the evidence, thank you very much - before turning around. Only to see my new 'student' staring dumbly at the sky. ‘Always a fool, that one. She's barely half my level despite having 8 years on me.’ I couldn't help but shake my head as I look to see what had captured her attention so completely.

“Huh,” was the only thing I could say in response to the stellar wreckage tumbling towards us. It was only about 400 meters away at the moment, which, coincidentally, is the low end of my engagement range as an artillery specialist. However, when a multiple kiloton space freighter was traveling at nearly 2 km/s, you don't exactly have the time to write a eulogy. Much less atomize the thing with focused artillery. I didn't even have the time to curse the slow-witted buffoon for not warning me sooner, as if it would've helped. “Son of a b-,”

So, with my last words being an overly erudite and complex exclamation of both surprise and confusion, my time as Leona Grace Xerinquall came to an end; a resounding explosion and a deep crater my final legacy. As it should be.

Oh well, I'd been growing bored of vaporizing my enemies from kilometers away, anyway (as deliriously fun as it was to be a walking artillery squad). Mayhap, I'll give ye olde strength build a try this time? Hm hm. Yeah, I'll call her 'The Bonkler' and always say "It's Bonkin' Time" before I kill things. It's a perfect plan.

Good thing I already had a back-up character saved, though. All I have to do is respawn as the buxom demon-kin I'd created more than a decade ago, and I’d be set! Of course, I’ll have to get in touch with the admins of this star cluster to maybe get a partial refund on the billions of credits I'd spent for the reservation on the clone tank, but it's not like I was hurting for cash anyway.

So, I waited. And waited. Then I waited some more…

Now, I'm not an expert on the technicalities and all that, but I'm fairly sure it shouldn't take too long to spit out the fresh body, slap my consciousness in there and zap it over to the starting town. Heck, it took less than a second my first time. It was so fast that I hadn't even processed being in the ‘quantum buffer', so to speak. This time, I'd been in here for… uh... lemme check real quick… system… woah, that's a lotta dings... eehhh, I'll check'em when I'm back on my feet. Now, what was I doing? Oh, right... let's see… settings... date & time... enable... woah! almost 2 days?!?!

Wait, hold on. This doesn't make any sense, right? First of all, my digi-brain's saying I've only been dead for like, maybe 10 minutes and I'm basically a computer right now so it's gotta be right. Second of all, the theoretical max on these bad boys should only reach the other end of the galaxy, and that shouldn't take much longer than a couple of hours to finish the whole process. So, with some back of the faux-napkin math, does that mean my clone is roughly 2 million light years away?!? How does that even make sense?? 

No, no. I must be experiencing some sort of time dilation or something through a strange quantum interaction. Just another thing to add to the bug report. Yeah. It'll be fine, right? No way I'll wake up in the middle of deep space or something… right?

***

/// ERROR #021 /// SYSTEM ORBITAL #42 CONNECTION LOST ///
/// ERROR #084 /// BUOY: UNAVAILABLE ///
/// USER #ZB042H0G: CONFIRMED DAMAGES///
/// ERROR # 002 /// UNAUTHORIZED SUBSPACE TETHERING DETECTED ///
/// ERROR #--- /// TRANSFERENCE: IN PROGRESS /// 
/// ERROR #--- /// RECALL: FAILED ///
/// ERROR #--- /// TRANSFERENCE: IN PROGRESS ///
/// ERROR #--- /// RECALL: FAILED ///
/// ERROR #--- /// TRANSFERENCE: IN PROGRESS ///
/// ERROR #--- /// RECALL: FAILED ///
/// PROTOCOL #1979 /// TAKACHIHO PROCEDURE INITIATED ///
/// USER #ZB042H0G: CONFIRMED, COMPENSATED FOR DAMAGES ///
/// USER #ZB042H0G: CONFIRMED, COMPENSATED FOR DAMAGES ///
/// USER #ZB042H0G: CONFIRMED, COMPENSATED FOR DAMAGES ///
…
…
…
/// USER #ZB042H0G: CONFIRMED, COMPENSATED FOR DAMAGES ///
/// ERROR #--- /// TRANSFERENCE: COMPLETE ///
/// ERROR #206 /// USER #ZB042H0G: NOT FOUND ///

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