<Mimi achieved level 50!>

 

“Yay!” Fey cheered. “Let’s blow this joint.”

 

Taking the words rather literally, Mimi blew through her mana stores, neatly dropping each of the remaining jade golems with a single shot through their enchanted stone hearts and turning them into piles of uncollected loot. Just as neatly, she dropped out of her perch in a tree as the Feypets swarmed over the jade rubble, extracting what was valuable and ignoring what was not.

Though it was Mimi who had just levelled up, she was much less outwardly enthusiastic than her training partner. Fey was just as comfortable being ‘the silly one’ with Mimi as she was being ‘the calm one’ with Sirena, the two facets of her personality coming to light depending on external circumstances.

Mood undampened, Fey held up a hand for a high five and Mimi slapped palms with precisely the correct amount of force to keep the contact from stinging.

“Trainer time!” said Fey. Starting at a higher level, she had reached level 50 approximately four game hours earlier.

Mimi nodded. “Meet back in ten minutes?”

“Okay,” said Fey. “Wait. Do you have enough feat points to advance?”

Mimi nodded. “You do, too, I think.”

“I do?” Fey checked her class menu.

 

<Bloody Murder: Inflict 200% potential damage through delayed damage skills before a monster dies – 5 points>

<Target Locked (I): Kill 100 monsters without changing targets from first attack to death – 5 points>

<Target Locked (II): Kill 500 monsters without changing targets from first attack to death – 5 points>

<Target Locked (III): Kill 1000 monsters without changing targets from first attack to death – 5 points>

<In the Red (I): Hit 100 critical areas (red in Critical Sight) in a row without missing – 5 points>

<In the Red (II): Hit 200 critical areas (red in Critical Sight) in a row without missing – 5 points>

<Fearmonger (I): Lower 500 opponents’ attack initiative – 5 points>

<Hypercrite (I): Deal 1000 critical hits – 5 points>

<Can’t Touch This (I): Kill 100 monsters in a row without receiving damage – 10 points>

 

“Wow.” Fey was impressed at how many assassin feats she had managed to complete without trying. This was an unexpected benefit to choosing a subclass that matched her playing style so well.

 

Mimi pulled out the sniper token that opened a portal to her trainer. “Later.”

“Bye!” Fey took out her own token and made her way to Rreorawr’s abode.

 

 

While the two elves left the Elvenwood to learn their next class skill, other players continued to hunt the jade golems Fey and Mimi had been killing for the better part of a week. Each kill brought the invisible countdown that would summon the boss monster closer to zero.

 

 

“Ba-ack~” Fey said in a sing-song voice. “What’s your new skill?” she asked Mimi.

“Arrow Clone. It uses mana to manifest solid shadow arrows that accompany the real shot,” Mimi answered (in her longest sentence that week). This skill differed from pure archer subclasses in that those classes generally gained the ability to shoot multiple real arrows at once. The advantage and drawback was the same: it used fewer arrows and consumed mana instead. “You?” Mimi asked in return.

“Self-Haste,” Fey answered. “I can double my speed for 30 seconds at a time.” This skill provided a truly incredible burst of speed, as movement speed in Fantasia was calculated based on a formula that doubled speed with each ten-fold increase in the agility attribute. “It uses stamina up at four times the rate, though. I can also damage myself while it’s on,” she qualified. This penalty was not one artificially imposed by the game developers but rather the physics of kinetic energy and the biological consequences of moving beyond what the body was capable of.

 

“Let’s go eat and then meet up with Sirena and Blade,” Fey suggested.

Mimi nodded and the pair fell into a companionable walk back to town.

 

“I bet—” Fey broke off as the ground began to tremble with a low rumble.

Fey and Mimi turned in the direction of the ominous sound in time to see one of the arboreal giants of the forest topple to the ground in the distance. From that same direction came the shouts of heated combat and, a minute later, the streaks of light indicating that players were travelling to the nearest rebirth point.

“Is that…?” Fey looked nervously at Mimi.

Instead of mirroring Fey’s concern, Mimi calmly lifted her crossbow and gave it a thorough inspection. “The boss is here,” she announced with the certainty of someone who had been in similar circumstances many times before.

“I guess we’re fighting it?” Fey said with trepidation. Though manifesting the King Jade Golem had been the official goal of training on the jade golems, she had been relieved when she and Mimi had reached level 50 without it appearing.

Mimi walked to the nearest tall tree. “It’s too late to run, anyways. It always targets the players who have killed the most of its monsters.” She did not bother to clarify that after a week of assassin-sniper hunting of the jade golems, there were no players that even came close to rivalling their kill count.

The loud rumbles and crashes were getting closer, telling Fey that Mimi was correct. “How do you even kill something that’s so many levels higher?” she asked plaintively. While the jade golems were level 47, the King Jade Golem was level 62.

“Hit-and-run techniques. Don’t let it hit you even once or you’ll die,” Mimi warned.

“Can’t we just hide until it gives up looking for us?”

“It’s twelve levels higher, so it can see through your Shadow Cloak,” Mimi answered, ruthlessly cutting off Fey’s hypothetical escape routes. “Most debuffs will fail as well,” she added. She seemed unconcerned that the King Jade Golem’s higher level would negate most of their stealth-based rogue abilities. Unsheathing her Shadow Claws, Mimi started up a tree. “I’ll ambush it on the way here. Make your first strike count.”

“But, Mimiiiiii,” Fey wailed.

Mimi paused halfway up the tree to look at her friend and party-mate. “What?”

“…Never mind.” Fey was not used to anyone actually paying attention to her whining. In front of strangers, she did not exhibit the behaviour and, in fact, seemed quite stoic, while her close friends knew that whining was simply one of her favourite hobbies.

Mimi smiled in good humour, the closest her solemn expression came to a (n evil) smirk, clearly understanding Fey better than her question had implied. Further demonstrating her understanding of Fey, or rather, her pets, she added, “The King Jade Golem’s core is worth half a million on the market,” before disappearing into the treetops.

 

“Waitwaitwaitwaitwait,” Fey said as she hurried to grab her pets before they could run off after such valuable loot. She did not actually possess the physical ability to stop the six-Fey Boris, but the iron boar paused rather than drag his owner ignominiously through the dirt. “Now you listen to me,” she said sternly to the Feypets, who had a poor understanding of the concept of mortality, “this boss is way stronger and faster than us. One hit and you’re dead, and you lose all your levels and skills. Dying is absolutely not allowed. You run around and distract it, that is all. As soon as it even looks at you, you start taking evasive action. Let Mimi do the damage, okay? We’ll still get the loot in the end.”

The Feypets nodded their agreement with the air of children reassuring their overcautious mother. Fey had the impression that they did not take the danger seriously, but would humour her and obey. Good enough. She let Boris trot off at a more sedate pace than his previous headlong charge, wondering what it said about her personality that her pets seemed to tend towards reckless, almost suicidal behaviour. “Spread out,” she called, and six shadows separated from Boris’ bulky form.

 

An explosion and faster pounding footsteps heralded Mimi’s first attack on the King Jade Golem. Fey checked her weapons and settled behind a tree, controlling her breathing when it threatened to become inefficiently fast and shallow. Of all her adventures in Fantasia, this was the situation that made her feel that death was the most imminent. Though the boss would see through it, Fey activated Shadow Cloak as a precursor to many of her rogue and assassin skills.

 

A squeak announced that Amethyst has backtracked from her position with Boris. The slime landed on the only part of Fey that had obviously exposed skin, her face, and secreted a potion.

 

<Strength tonic: +15 strength>

<Duration: 1 hour>

 

Fey grimaced at the slimy sensation. “Thanks,” she said dryly. “Go buff Mimi if you can find her.”

Amethyst squeaked acknowledgement and looped her bubble-arm around a tree branch, swinging out of sight with remarkable speed.

 

I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, Fey thought, psyching herself up. With Critical Sight activated, she prepared to treat this just like any other fight, targeting the monster’s weaknesses and hopefully crippling it before it could retaliate. She kept her eyes peeled for the red spots that would indicate weaknesses to aim for.

 

The King Jade Golem came into view with a crash of broken branches and heavy steps that shook the ground and Fey froze. Her earlier warning to her pets had been accurate with “faster and stronger”, but failed to capture the boss monster’s sheer size. Over three times Fey’s height, the golem’s knees reached as high as Fey’s head. Moreover, it appeared entirely blue to Fey’s Critical Sight, indicating that its stony exterior would take minimal damage from her attacks. Underneath the blue, she could see the pale red of armoured vital spots, but the blue was thick enough that the prospect of breaking through seemed impossible.

 

An arrow – or rather, three – exploded on the golem’s chest, and Fey saw the blue covering its animating core become incrementally thinner.

 

<Mimi: Distract it, will you? It’s hard to aim if I have to chase it.>

 

Muttering a prayer to the powers that be, Fey stepped into the open and used Terrify to let out a shriek.

 

<Debuff failed. The King Jade Golem is unaffected.>

 

The golem paused its headlong run and turned its eyeless head towards Fey. Another shot exploded into its chest, exactly where the previous shot had landed. The golem changed its focus to Mimi, and Fey knew it was time to act.

 

Fey activated both Mana Edge and Brittle Edge, increasing her armour penetration and pure attack power while making her body dangerously susceptible to damage. In her vision, the blue on the golem’s body lightened to reflect her increased offensive power, but not enough that she had any hope of inflicting real damage.

She charged, looking for areas of palest blue to attack. The golem lifted a foot in preparation to kick her and she immediately changed directions to circle rather than get within range of that giant stone foot, heart pounding with adrenaline.

 

Another arrow punched into the golem’s chest, and this time, it charged towards Mimi’s perch. Fey shouted and chased after the boss, but it refused to be distracted. With a single punch, the golem took out the top half of the tree.

Fey charged in and made a similar attack against the golem. Her punching blade sank its entire short length into the stone around its ankle joint, but the strike only exposed more stone. Fey threw herself out of the way as the automaton kicked at her, giving no sign that she had hurt it in any way.

 

A shot from a different direction told Fey that Mimi was still able to fight. She scrambled to get out of the golem’s immediate range, dodging its massive feet by margins too small for comfort.

 

From the side, Boris charged in, for once looking small next to the golem’s colossal body. A loud crack before the iron boar made contact indicated that Amethyst had reunited with her battle partner and was using Whip to its full effect, though even the slime’s powerful blows made little difference to the boss’s stone casing. Boris wisely veered off at an angle rather than colliding with the King Jade Golem, carrying Amethyst safely away.

Fey seized the distraction to get out of immediate danger, in that moment feeling bitter regret at not choosing a long-range combat class.

 

Another shot, again with the same placement as the previous attacks.

 

<Mimi: Are you going to use your new ability?>

<Fey: Oh yeah.>

 

Thinking on the spot was not one of Fey’s strengths, and she had not yet integrated the newly learned Self-Haste into her mental toolkit of things she could use in combat.

 

Fey activated Self-Haste for the first time, marvelling at how the world seemed to slow down at the same time as her body felt half as heavy. The golem, already slow enough that she could dodge its attacks, now seemed to be moving in slow motion.

Fey darted in, easily sidestepped a kick, and attacked the same spot she had before. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight strikes with her punching blades went in like an eyeblink. She ended the combination with the fastest Back Kick she had ever completed in her life and skipped out of the way of the golem’s next attack. Feeling invincible, Fey attacked again, and then a third time.

 

<Mimi: Watch the timer.>

<Fey: Yeah, thanks.>

 

With two seconds left on the timer, Fey danced out of the golem’s attack range, feeling immensely satisfied with her new ability.

<Self-Haste: 2 seconds>

< Self-Haste: 1 second>

 

The world sped back up to normal and Fey was hit with a wall of pain and fatigue. Unaccustomed to Self-Haste, she had pushed her body as if it were naturally able to move at double speed. Already weakened by Brittle Edge, her muscles were trembling with utter fatigue, while her joints and tendons ached with the strain of holding her together under forces they were not designed to withstand. She nearly collapsed to the ground, only managing to stay upright because of years of experience in tae kwon do class teaching her how to do so with minimal energy expenditure.

 

The golem came after Fey but was distracted by a cluster of three ranged shots from Mimi.

 

<Mimi: You okay?>

<Fey: No.>

Fey was basically done. In real life, it would take several days for her body to recover from its energy expenditure, weeks for her strained tendons to heal completely; in Fantasia, it would take at least an hour to get back into any shape to effectively fight the golem. Healing potions were not particularly useful for the type of damage she had done to herself.

Fey stood her ground. At this level of exhaustion, there was no way she could run from the golem. As much as she could, she deepened and slowed her laboured breathing, trying to recover enough energy to at least throw herself out of the way when the golem unleashed its next attack.

 

Another arrow exploded, and at first, Fey’s exhaustion-fogged mind was surprised that Mimi had missed the golem’s chest; Mimi never missed. It was only when the golem lost its balance and toppled to the ground that she realized Mimi had hit the ankle Fey had weakened and completely severed that foot from its body.

 

The golem was unable to stand without its foot but it felt no pain at the loss. It heaved itself upright, hopping forward on one foot and shaking the earth with each heavy landing.

Boris and Amethyst streaked in, attacking from angles that were hard for the golem to turn towards now that it only had one leg to rely on. The crack of Amethyst’s Whip against stone rang out with gunshot loudness.

Inky shadows swarmed up the golem’s body as the glooms made their move. The golem batted clumsily at the small invaders, but the glooms were able to easily dodge its attempts to grab them.

The pets failed to do significant damage but provided distraction while Mimi resumed her attacks against the stone over the golem’s core. Aware that her friend was only steps away from mortal danger, Mimi shot every few seconds, as fast as she could charge her bolts with mana, spending her mana stores without holding anything in reserve.

 

After a minute of recovery, Fey felt like she might be able to move enough to escape, though she was far from having enough stamina to activate Self-Haste again. She positioned herself at such a distance that the golem occasionally took a swipe at her but never committed to much of an attack before being distracted by Mimi or the pets, contributing what she could to the battle.

 

On the golem’s back, Shadow experimentally seeped into a small crack left by one of Amethyst’s numerous attacks. Mimicking the expanding effect of water as it froze, the gloom strained against the edges of the crack, forcing it incrementally wider.

With that small increase in width came a large lengthening of the crack. Sensing a real threat to its armour, golem ignored Mimi’s ongoing shots to scrabble at its back, but Shadow managed to wedge itself completely into the crack and took no harm. The golem was forced to split its attention as Amethyst took the opportunity to focus her strikes at a single spot, opening a crack of equal size on the knee of the remaining good leg.

Sensing the path to victory was within grasp, Shadow squeaked excitedly and Obsidian streaked over to help. The two glooms strained with all their might to widen the crack, and it split to lengthen down the golem’s entire back. It dug at them but could not reach them with its thick fingers.

The other four glooms joined in and positioned themselves along the length of the crack. With a concerted push, they detached an entire sheet of stone, exposing the golem’s animating core – and the glooms themselves.

The shadow-bunnies streaked out of the way as fast as they could, but at least one was unable to avoid a glancing blow from the golem’s stony hands.

“No!” Fey yelled. Despite having barely enough stamina to do so, she activated Self-Haste and charged forward. The ability suspended her fatigue, and she barely noticed the attacks she dodged as she half-climbed, half-jumped up the golem’s body, hands finding purchase inside its hollow torso. She hauled herself up and attacked the core, a watermelon-sized stone orb etched with magical runes. The core loosened but remained in place.

Several things happened simultaneously. The golem reached behind itself to grab at Fey through the hole in its back. With her bubble-arm and Boris’ full strength, Amethyst managed to restrain one arm, but the other continued forward as Fey launched her most powerful Back Kick at the core. On the golem’s front, Mimi’s barrage of explosive attacks finally punched through its chest armour and continued through to directly impact the core.

Between Mimi’s Explosive Shot and Fey’s speed-enhanced Back Kick, the core finally detached from the golem’s body and the automaton lost animation just as its arm crashed into Fey. The remnants of Explosive Shot curled around the core and burned into Fey; thankfully, Back Kick ensured that her head was leaning away from the core and her legs took most of the damage. She lost her balance as the explosion knocked her aside and the golem crumpled to the ground, landing heavily on the unforgiving stone of the golem’s jade body.

 

<Fey’s party has defeated the King Jade Golem!>

<Fey gains 2142 experience. Amethyst gains 2142 experience. Boris gains 2142 experience. Onyx gains 2142 experience. Inkblot gains 2142 experience. Ebony gains 2142 experience. Midnight gains 2142 experience. Shadow gains 2142 experience. Obsidian gains 2142 experience.>

<Mimi gains 3214 experience.>

 

Owww. Everything hurt. Fey was bruised all over from her fall, slightly burned on her legs, and the consequences of her second use of Self-Haste were making themselves felt. Even the idea of moving hurt more, so she stayed very still.

 

“Fey!” Mimi rapidly picked her way across the rubble of the golem’s remains and knelt beside her friend, expression concerned. Swiftly assessing the severity of Fey’s condition, the sniper pulled out a medium healing potion and poured it into Fey’s mouth.

Fey swallowed and sighed in relief as some of her burns and bruises disappeared. While the potion worked, Mimi cleared away shards of jade so that Fey could lie more comfortably.

 

The cessation of pain is a wonderful thing. Fey relaxed. Her body was still incredibly sore from her misuse of Self-Haste, but pain was a relative experience and after her burns and bruises disappeared, the soreness felt like the kind of pleasant exhaustion she experienced after a good workout. The fatigue was overwhelming, which was strange to experience in Fantasia because it was not accompanied by sleepiness.

 

Boris and Amethyst approached. With a concerned squeak, Amethyst landed on Fey’s forehead and began to secrete healing potion.

Fey grimaced at the sticky sensation and croaked, “Stamina.”

Amethyst squeaked in understanding and switched potions. Almost immediately, Fey felt fresh energy invigorating her limbs.

Gingerly, Fey sat up, causing Amethyst to fall into her lap. Mimi used a supportive hand against Fey’s back, still wearing a concerned expression.

 

Something nudged Fey’s leg.

Fey looked down to see Ebony in bunny form, one ear crumpled as if it were a piece of paper that had been scrunched up.

Remembering the reason she had courted severe injury in the first place, Fey picked up the gloom and asked, “Is everybody okay?”

Ebony squeaked, her tone not particularly assuring.

Fey made to get up, but a hand on her shoulder pressed her down.

“I’ll get them,” said Mimi. She carefully picked her way across the shards of stone littering the ground and collected the other five glooms. Each one had some kind of deformity in its usual bunny shape, which was how they manifested damage. Instead of losing blood, the glooms lost cohesion and the shadow-stuff that made up their bodies. Inkblot was the mildest case, merely exhibiting a rough, irregular texture that matched the cracked stone it had pressed against, while Shadow appeared to have its back half completely sheared off.

“Oh, my baby!” Fey gasped, cradling Shadow as gently as she could. Glooms did not actually rely on limbs for movement and had no vital spots; Shadow had simply lost too much substance to form the full bunny shape. Seeing Fey mournfully pet the abbreviated section where its back legs would normally go, Shadow re-formed itself into a smaller, complete bunny. The shift somehow made the injury seem both better and worse now that Shadow was less than half the size of its brethren.

 

Just as glooms did not experience damage in the same way as biology-based monsters, they also healed differently. Typical healing magic and potions did not work; instead, they required either dark-element magic or physical darkness to reform their shadow-substance.

Expression sentimental, Fey grabbed her pack off of Boris’ saddle and put each gloom inside, giving each a pat as she did so. She leaned tiredly against Boris’ solid shoulder.

 

Leaving Fey in the care of her pets, Mimi got up to collect the loot, retrieving the King Jade Golem’s animating core, a translucent green sphere that appeared to be made of jade, but demonstrated much higher hardness based on the fact that it was undamaged by any of their attacks.

Head still supported by Boris rather than her own neck muscles, Fey frowned in dissatisfaction at the core. “It doesn’t look like it’s worth half a million gold.”

Mimi placed the orb in Boris’ other saddle pack and patted it. “Once it’s been enchanted, it makes a very good core component for magical weapons.”

 

Fey perked up, the animation visible in her facial expression but nowhere else on her fatigued body. “Enchanted? Like, with Enchant? I can do that.”

Mimi raised her eyebrows. “How did you learn a spell?”

“From Kallara. She said I’m talented at magic.”

Mimi lowered her eyebrows in a frown of confusion. “So why didn’t you become a mage?”

“Mages are too squishy. Also, they always need to be in a party.”

Mimi shook her head but could not disagree. Bending down, she wrapped Fey’s arm around her shoulders and lifted her up. “You can enchant it later.”

“My mana stores are fine,” Fey protested.

Mimi sat her friend down on Boris’ rarely-used saddle. “Later,” she repeated.

 

Fey was not about to argue with that particular tone. People like Mimi generally went with others’ wishes and suggestions, but when they gave an order, it was to be obeyed. “Now what?”

“Sit.” One hand steadying Fey in the saddle, Mimi walked back towards the Moonwood. Boris matched the sniper’s pace without any command from his owner, leaving Fey with nothing to do but sit and not fall off.