The rest of sunday passed slowly. It passed slowly because after I ate lunch I stayed in the game for the entire rest of the day with Col, Karen and Liam as we made our way towards the rest of our group. Karen and I had become close after my weepy confession about who I was, and it showed in the way we hung out together as we walked, chatting constantly about random silly things. She started calling me Sylly about halfway through the first ingame day of walking and I let her, it felt great.

I had to cave in with my saved up skill points. Saving them up was only hindering me. During the downtime between encounters I agonised over where to spend them, looking over all the things I could potentially want to spec into and thereby drive my build in that direction.

I picked up the ability that allowed me to dash to friendly players, as well as putting one point each into Spell Dancing and Unarmed Casting to raise them to rank two. My last point was spent on a really cool ability that I was excited to use simply because it looked really cool.

The ability caused my fist and forearm to become wreathed in roiling cloud, miniature lightning dancing through it. When I punched someone, it would discharge into them like a mule’s kick, stunning for a small duration and dealing a small amount of damage. I was turning myself into an odd healer that’s for sure, but I was building for the rule of cool so screw the haters! It wasn’t long on our first day before I got to use the ability.

I was walking next to karen and she was telling me about her family. She had a lot of siblings, of which she was the youngest. Her brothers and sisters were all very competitive and instead of joining in, Karen had tried to stay out of it, preferring to go through life at her own pace. That hadn’t stopped her parents from pushing her though, and when she’d found her passion for football and skateboarding, they had gotten behind her whole heartedly. She was a study in contrasts Karen. Shy and bookish on one end, loving to read, and athletic and good at it on the other end. I wanted to get to know her more, understand how those two seemingly contradictory halves fit together so well.

Learning about her and her life was fun, so neither myself nor Karen noticed initially when we were charged by something. It was huge. With thundering hoofbeats a two storey tall wall of wood-mimicking-flesh barrelled towards us through the trees. The thing was an enormous stag, its proud antlers made of petrified wood while the rest of it’s form was a mix of solid wood and fur made of autumn leaves.

“Aw shit! Elderwood Hecarim is after us!” yelled Karen with a laugh.

I gave an appreciative giggle at her reference to the League character. Obviously the wooden stag didn't have a humanoid upper body but the resemblance was there.

As it lowered its head for the charge, I dove out of the way. Karen didn't. At the last second she stepped to the side and placed her greatsword in the path of one enormous leg. Her sword was ripped from her hands as the beast gave a beugeling cry and at least two tons of wooden flesh crashed heavily to the ground.

Liam was there after that, goading the enraged tree thing into attacking him. I noticed Karen was shaking her hand out in pain. It was probably overkill, she probably just wrenched it. I took a few steps to bring her into range and placed my hand over hers, sending healing energy flowing through it. Could I have used my currently more power ranged ability to do this instead? Yeah I probably could have.

She looked down at me with a smile on her face and I motioned her to get her sword back. She blinked, nodded and dashed off towards the fight. Liam was in need of healing, I could tell his shield arm had taken I hit that had broken something as it was held limp at his side. With a blast from one hand I started the process of healing him. My other hand threw an orb of azure gold light to the ground, which expanded out into a large radius and set the ground glowing slightly. Instantly I could feel myself become healthier as the circle began healing my road sores.

Col announced his entrance into the battle with the sound of shuddering glaciers. Out of the sky a disc of impenetrable white mist formed, and through that a hail of head sized chunks of ice hammered down onto the Stag. The creature bellowed and thrashed wildly to escape the pain. Liam kept it corralled inside the ice storm for the whole duration though, with Karen's help. Every time it tried to go one way, Karen was there to hew a chunk off the thing with her enormous sword. Every time it tried to move another way Liam was there, bringing the edge of his shield into it with a dull crack.

We continued for a few moments, working together to keep it on the back foot while our two damage dealers had fun blasting and carving pieces off it. It didn't last forever though, the Stag suddenly reared up and stomped heavily on the ground, causing it to ripple and knock us onto our butts. Taking the advantage, it whirled and kicked out with a hind leg, connecting with the struggling Liam and sending him sailing through the air to impact a tree.

Liam lay against the base of the tree with his eyes wide, looking to be in serious pain as he scrabbled at his chest with his fingers. Uh oh, I needed to heal him fast. If he couldn't breath or something else was wrong internally and he died, he would respawn back in Keldrin, his last bind point. I twirled my hand, calling the threads of golden light I needed before thrusting them in his direction. I felt my stomach lurch as I was pulled towards him at speed, flying to him with hand outstretched.

I arrived with my plan already in motion. My other hand hit him with a laser pulse of energy, while the hand I had used to pull myself to him landed directly on his chest and followed suit. The three healing spells combined to bring him back into fighting shape, if not outright topping him up to full health. I looked back in time to see Karen take the Stags attention away from Col before it could paste him across a tree too, but now she was in trouble.

“Shit! No, Karen!” I called as the beast wound up to send her flying with a flick of its enormous antlers.

I thought fast, unlike Liam, she wouldn't survive a massive hit from it. I realised I could do something though, and it would be flashy and impressive… and probably painful. Karen would probably be grateful too and that made me feel a little silly. Summoning the glowing tendrils once more, I thrust them at her, coiling them around her like rope. The coils didn't hinder her, expanding and contracting with her movements as though made of malleable rubber. I kicked off with my feet as the spell pulled me towards her, giving me air time. When I reached the zenith of my arc I released my hold on the spell and feeling the pull vanish. I spun in the air as I closed with Karen, and with the Stag that was bearing down on her.

Clenching my fist I felt the crackling energy build. Bright white clouds tinged with blue swirled around my arm, golden lightning crackling within. When my flight took me within range, I slammed my fist into its rump. There was was a crack-boom as my spell discharged into the beast and chunks of bark flew lazily into the air, propelled by the suddenly superheated sap within the creature. The Stag cried out and fell to the side twitching and shuddering.

That wasn’t the end of things though, I hit the ground with my left leg first and heard an ugly snap as the bone broke under the impact. Mirroring my foe, I screamed and went down in a heap.

“Syl!” Karen cried as she rushed to me.

“Kill that stupid fucking lump of wood!” I ground out between tears and clenched teeth, “I’ll be fine in a bit.”

She nodded and raced to do as I’d bid. With a grunt of pain I began to the process of pumping healing energy into myself, and watched as Liam arrived to regain the attention of the great beast just as it began to rise back to its feet. Karen, and especially Col had been busy during the opportunity I had presented them with, hammering spells and abilities into the creature. When I was able to stand again, the creature was dead.

Congratulations! Your party has managed to defeat the rare Corrupt Stag of the Grove. This beast had a bounty placed on it by the gods. Here is your reward!

A bulging coin purse dropped from the air a foot above the large dead monster and rolled to the ground and Liam bent to pick it up.

“It’s got like, hmmm yup, it’s got a hundred gold in it I think,” he said with a satisfied nod.

“Damn! That's awesome!” Col said enthusiastically.

Before Col could snatch it from his hands, he dished out 25 gold coins each, which we squirreled away in our inventories. For me it was more than just casual game income. The gold I’d just recieved was a big step in paying for the spell I needed. We gathered parts of the Stag that looked like they could be sold and returned to our walk. It had been a close one, but we’d won and it felt awesome.

Karen walked next to me and gave me a massive grin, “Syl that move you did to stun the monster was so cool! You’re like a badass healing ninja girl!”

I smiled right back and felt my cheeks burn a little, “Everyone was badass! Liam got crazy beat up and as soon as he was healed he was back at it! Col was all boom boom pew pew get rekt ya stupid shrubbery! And you Karen! You faced that charge at the start like a matador! It was such a cool fight!”

Everyone started in then, Col telling us about the spells he’d pulled off, Liam talking about how great the strategy that Karen and he had pulled off to keep it in the ice storm. We were in pretty good spirits.

The rest of the travel to the city of Dailsil passed relatively uneventfully. We had to fight a bunch of creatures, and I reached level six at the end of the first day, and level seven just as we neared the city. My intelligence, wisdom and dexterity were all much higher than my other stats now, so I placed the level seven attribute points across the others to even myself out a bit.

The forest had thinned out somewhat as we’d travelled the last day, morphing into tall stands of redwood every hundred meters. It was as though the area had a strict ratio of half forest and half grassland to adhere to. Dailsil itself was every bit the beautiful elven city, the streets were lined with finely carved buildings that flowed together as though they were another natural landscape unto themselves.

That’s not to say it was all blending with the landscape and living in harmony with the land. The place was ringed by a large stone wall, sturdy towers supported by elegant buttresses lined the wall every fifty meters or so. It was pretty incredible to see in person, even though I’d seen its like many times in normal video games I’d played.

Attentive guards stood at the arching gate, eyeing all those who passed through as though they were one wrong move away from a stabbing. We passed through with only a narrowed glare from the guard closest to us and then our journey was finished. We made our way to the Inn where we were meant to meet Dana and Greg.

The Inn was called the Soaring Drake, and it was a bit out of the way compared to the more well known places along the main streets. It was a two story building with dark green tiles as a roof. A small gate led around the side to a courtyard and stables.

We went into the main room and we all stood inside the threshold waiting for our eyes to adjust to the light. Dana and Greg weren’t there at the moment and so with grateful sighs we collapsed around a table. A barmaid appeared and Liam told her we’d like meals and beds.

“So, guys,” hedged Col, “I know you’re in Syl, but do you guys want to join our group? If we have you two we’ll have the perfect party. Plus you two are great at the game and fun to hang out with.”

I looked at Karen with almost pleading hope in my eyes. I really wanted her to be in the group. I didn’t want to be separated from her.

“It’s a good offer,” said Liam thoughtfully, “I’ll definitely keep it in mind, but Kar-”

“Yes!” Karen blurted suddenly, “I want to stay with you guys!”

My face broke into a smile that almost dealt radiant damage.

Liam looked at her a bit taken aback before shrugging, “I guess that’s a yes then,” He said with a wry expression.

“Nice! Now we just need the other two here and we’ll all be officially a party!” exclaimed Col.

“Oh, I’m going to add you guys as friends!” I said, opening the menus to do so.

The meals arrived soon after and we bantered away about our journey while we ate. We’d bonded quite a lot spending so many days in each others company and working together to fight all manner of beasts. I was confident our group would do great things.

When they finally did arrive, they looked a little worse for wear. Greg, or Amra as she was called ingame, had blood and dirt all over her leather armour, and I could see bandages around her legs. Dana looked just as bad, if not worse, she was cradling a broken arm and her own leather armour had slashes gouged in it.

I leapt up and rushed to them, not stopping to greet them as I poured healing energy into Dana and then into Amra. They both released the tension they had been holding in their bodies as the pain left them, and they gave me weary smiles as thanks.

When Dana’s eyes fell on me properly, they widened in recognition. “You!”

“Me?” I squeaked.

I used hurrying them to the table as an excuse to stall the conversation before sitting down very close to Karen on the bench for support.

Amra and Dana sat next to each other on the bench opposite, next to Col.

“You’re the girl from before, at the park,” Dana said to me, her eyes drilling into me.

“Yeah,” I said quietly.

“She was there to meet me, we wanted to hang out a little before we got into the game,” Karen said jumping to my rescue.

“Hey go easy on her Dana she’s shy,” said Col, backing me up as well.

“Alright, sorry. It’s just… Nevermind…” she said a little despondently.

“Anyway, thanks so much for healing us there, um Syl? Right? It was pretty unpleasant walking back here like that,” said Amra, and Dana nodded her agreement.

“How’d you get all beat up like that?” asked Liam.

“There’s already a guild war going on around the city. This huge guild that carried over from a previous game is trying to take over the area around the city and force all the other adventurers out. I think they called themselves the Blackfeathers? There’s a few other guilds fighting back but these guys have so many people it’s not going well. Things really blew up around here since their leader arrived,” Dana explained.

“Wait didn’t we fight a bunch of Blackfeather people when we left? Do they wear black and green? Col asked.

“Yeah they do!” Greg exclaimed.

“I think we killed a few of them,” Col grinned.

“Nice, we’ve been fighting them all fricken’ day,” Dana sighed.

Oh no, that meant it might be difficult to get the gold I needed for my spell. How was I going to get enough money if everyone was busy turning the area into a warzone? The others kept talking about the situation and plans to take our group out on monday night for a day of questing and grinding.

Karen noticed I was feeling down and elbowed me lightly, “Hey what’s up?” she asked.

I looked up at her and told her very quietly of my problems with identification and how I was going to try and fix that.

She nodded as I finished and leaned closer to whisper in my ear, “Would you like the 25 gold from my share of that miniboss kill? You can pay me back later. Your future is way more important than a few bits of new gear for me.”

I felt my eyes glisten with a bit of moisture as she offered her money to me, and I nodded in thanks and acceptance. She was a very kind person. She passed the gold to me, and as she did so I looked up into her eyes. They were so close. They were the same eyes she had in reality as well, and I realised they must have been transformed.

“Your eyes were transformed too?” I asked her softly.

“Yeah,” was all she said as she stared back at me.

“Hey!,” yelled a voice, and we both jumped like a least three feet in the air.

All four of the others were looking at us expectantly, except Dana who had a little grin on her face as she looked on. I could feel my face flushing with embarrassment, but I was uncertain about why.

“Um?” Karen asked.

“We wanted to know if you guys were down for trying to find a dungeon around here to explore, maybe on tuesday night or something?” asked Liam with a curious expression on his face as he looked at the two of us.

I nodded and Karen said, “Yeah sounds good!”

The group turned back to game discussion, and Karen and I started to participate too. It was actually still mid afternoon in the game world, but we all figured it was time for bed and to log off. We all paid for our meal and rooms and headed up to bed. I gave Karen a shy wave before I went into my own room.

When I began to sit down I realised I didn’t actually have to log out right now. I didn’t really have anything to do, so I figured I might take a look around the city. First however, I changed into a new set of clothing and washed myself, because travel had covered me in grime and dust. Nice and freshened up, or as near as could be achieved in a fantasy setting like this one, I headed back out of the inn. I knew what was first. Selling all the crap I’d collected along the trip. I was determined not to get destroyed in the haggling over prices this time.

When I finally managed to navigate the tangle of streets and alleyways to the market, things were beginning to wind down, but I approached the stalls that bought adventurer loot anyway. I went to each one and sold my various items. Small glowing knots of wood that acted as the heart of a wood sprite, long sharp talons from the bigger ones, the list went onwards.

I began feeling super nervous about speaking to so many strangers, and I almost choked up and couldn’t speak. Haggling did not go very well this time either, although my near panic clearly got to some of the more kind hearted stall owners because they backed off a bit and allowed me to come away with a modest thirty four gold coins for my troubles. The parts I had gotten from the Stag were worth a lot, and I’d been given the core which sold very well and made up a large chunk of my total earnings.

With coin pouch full, I made my way over to a spell store I had seen earlier. The place was almost identical to the one from the small town we had started at, only much much bigger. There was a lot of magical doodads and the like stacked on shelves, and a section for each type of magical casting focus. I saw some very pretty staves I wanted to look at, but I told myself I had priorities.

I walked up to the counter, where an apprentice was sitting there bored out of his skull. He perked up straight away when he saw me coming to talk to him.

“Hey there, what do you need?” He asked in a chirpy voice.

“Um, I need a powerful mage to make me a spell,” I told him.

“I’m pretty powerful, what do you need?” He told me boastfully, puffing his chest out.

I opened and closed my mouth a few times trying to figure out what was going on, before I realised he was trying to impress me. Oh dear.

“I need a spell that will go through an information source and edit it in small ways that I specify,” I said blandly.

“Oh,” He said, deflating, “Let me go get my master.”

With that he scurried off, and when he returned from a back staircase he had an older looking elf following behind him. The new man had a long thin goatee. He was obviously the guy I needed.

“I understand you are in need of a challenging spellmind my dear, would you care to explain what you would need this for as well as what the parameters will be?” he said in a kind voice, “I’m afraid I cannot make such a spell for just anyone.”

I explained my problem to him in terms that he would grasp. I was from a different kingdom, and while visiting this one I had become changed, taking on new characteristics that invalidated my old documents with the heavily bureaucratic fictional nation. I carefully left out a few things that would complicate things, as well as a name for the nation I was “from”. I also explained that I needed a way to hide how long my ears were, and if there was a way for him to do that.

“Yes… I see your problem now. I also believe that despite your attempt at secrecy I know which nation you speak of. Concealing your ears is an easy enough endeavour, I will cast a spell matrix into each ear to control the transfiguration and then link the power requirements to your own mana pool. Be aware that this type of spell is usually not used for anything larger than this, as the energy drain gets exponentially greater the more matter is placed in the duality,” he stopped to breath, thankfully, before continuing, “This spell can be prepared and applied now, it is not difficult. The bigger spell that you need will take me a day, maybe two to prepare and complete. Can you wait that long?”

“Yes, and thank you so much… Um, how much will this cost?” I asked in a plaintive voice.

“I think one hundred gold coins would suffice,” he said jovially.

“Oh,” I said. I didn’t have enough. I was feeling so down about not being able to sort this out now that my ears actually drooped a little, the small amount of control I had over them pulling them down with my mood.

“Ah, well. I’m sure we could come to an arrangement young lady. How much can you spare?” he asked as his resolve melted to my unwitting play on his kindness.

I perked up a little, but I was still fairly sure he would say no, “I have eighty four gold pieces on me sir,” I said hopefully.

He made a slightly pained face and my heart sank again.

He sighed, “Alright, but you had better use this store again before you leave my dear. I’m giving you a discount on faith that you will be a loyal customer for as long as you stay in Dailsil.”

I gave him a huge smile and nodded vigorously, handing him the coins straight away. He had trouble dealing with the pile at first before the apprentice dove in to help him.

“Ahem, let me just go and gather the things I will need for your ears, please wait a moment.”

I waited happily. When he returned he strode back to the counter and began laying out all sorts of strange implements, parchment and a quill. He started to draw complex flowing swirls of interlocking lines, like a combination celtic knot and sailors guide for knots. The lines would split and converge in a way that left you wondering where they had split. It was fascinating to watch.

Turning to the apprentice I asked, “Why is this so crazy looking? When I cast a spell I just ask it to happen in my mind and it does.”

“That’s like a packaged spell. Someone can teach you how to cast a spell by packing it up so that it is a nice neat bundle. What he’s doing is writing a new spell from scratch. It’s like the difference between buying a hotcake from a bakery or buying the ingredients and making it yourself,” he told me, happy to be of help and giving me a warm smile. Yet another guy smiling at me that no longer affected me.

It wasn’t long before he was finished, and he placed a small glass orb into the center of the parchment. With a flash the intricate swirls of spell writing were gone and the glass orb was transformed into two small wisps of light.

“Take each of these and place them inside your ears, it should take hold straight away,” the old mage told me.

I did as he asked and felt a strange flash of heat, then I was back to normal.

“Now as you would any other spell, ask it to activate.”

When I again did as he bid, I felt my ears shorten. It was strange and different again from how my racial ability worked. I felt up with my hands and was met with two ears that were much more within the realms of normal human anatomy. I still had slightly tapering points, but at least they weren’t a foot long like before.

“Thank you so much!” I exclaimed.

“It is my pleasure young lady, now about the other spell, come back at around this time in two days and I will have it ready for you. I should warn you that a spell brand can be quite painful to apply,” he warned.

“I can do it, thank you so much sir, you’re a life saver,” I said happily.

“I am just a shopkeeper, but thank you. Thank you for gracing this store with your beauty as well. Goodnight,” he said with a smile.

Having concluded the business I needed to do, I rushed back to the inn so I could log off and tell my parents the news.