Epona finished her drink as she watched the crowd mill about around her. It was noon and the hot weather was cooling down a little. A large gust of sand blew across the market causing a huge ruckus.
She had been here for 3 days, and spent most of her time roaming about the village or practicing with her blades. Around her, people were either setting out to go on quests or gearing up to fight monsters. Some people were returning from an earlier expedition, some people didn’t.
She was waiting for her friends to join her and hadn’t ventured out from the safety of the village yet. She invited Lamb to join her party and was excited to fight alongside him. They’d been friends for 2 years, and though they’d never met in person, she hoped he was a friend she could trust.
She had several other friends spread out across the world, they were eager to form a party together. She invited them to join her in Persia and looked forward to introducing them to Lamb. Every couple of hours, she went to check near her tent; that was where her game guide told her they’d be if they took up her offer to party up.
She wandered her way back to her tent, expecting to be disappointed again. No one had showed up yet, and she was worried they’d accidentally wondered off while she was away.
When she made it back to her tent, she lit up as she recognized a familiar figure wobbling about on his feet and stretching. She recognized his features from the photos they exchanged and their video chat sessions. He was an American from Jersey. He didn’t speak any Danish, so they talked in English.
He was sprawled down on the floor hyper extending his leg, toes curled back. Minus the colourful hair and flashy garments, he looked exactly as she pictured he would. Actually, the garments didn’t really surprise her, the colourful clothing fit his mythique quite accurately.
“Lamp!” She exclaimed as he looked up.
“Who are you?” He asked. Standing before him, was a 6’5 feet tall (196 cm), dark-haired women with lean muscles and an armoured breastplate.
“Who do you think?” She said crossing her arms. She was much taller and muscular than she looked in real life, but Lamb recognized her face.
“Good seeing you Epona.” Lamb said smiling. She smiled back.
“Check these out!” Epona whipped out a 3 pronged ninja sai, and threw it at Lambs feet, nearly impaling him. It glowed red as it flew. “Damn I missed, you’d be poisoned if that hit you.”
“It didn’t,” Lamb picked it up and dashed towards her. She stabbed him with another sai. He spun and dodged, then gently stabbed her on the side.
Several robed guards with keffiyehs peered their heads towards the 2 of them, their hands resting on their scabbards.
Epona waved at them, “It’s ok, we’re friends, just play fighting,” she announced, the guards made no sign of acknowledgement.
“This town is a safe zone, so there’s no killing allowed here, but we can practice and you can hit me harder than that.” She replied, punching him in the chest, making him stumble back. That hurt. ‘Well, if she insist’s’.
Epona held a sai in each hand and lunged at Lamb. He focused on her movements, and it appeared as if time was moving in slow motion. She was telegraphing a two handed stab to his abdomen. Time to see what they can do.
Epona stabbed out towards Lamb. He stepped out to her side, reached out to the back of her head, and using her momentum; he spun her around in a tenkan motion and tossed her on the floor.
As she got up, Lamb stepped towards her and stomped on her knee with a front snap kick. Snap. He then snapped a kick past her head, missing her skull by a couple inches, the force of his kick sent a gust of wind blowing her hair back.
“Fudge!” She exclaimed, clutching her broken knee.
“Are you ok?” Lamb asked, worried. ‘Did this place have a hospital?’
She blurted a series of expletives in Danish. After a half second delay, yellow subtitles appeared in front of Lamb’s vision, translating what she implied about his mother. He laughed and tried to brush away the subtitles, but his hands went right through them.
“Welp, I’m dead.” She forced herself to stand up, her bones made unsettling noises as she got up putting weight on her knee. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I just need a second.” She moaned as she put more weight on her knee. Her knee began glowing a feint blue, and then righted itself. Epona was able to walk again, but her eyes still winced; it still must hurt a little.
“How did you do that?” Lamb gasped.
“Everyone in Alyzia has a set amount of health magic. If you get hurt, you’ll automatically heal— which takes up some health gauge, once your health is gone, you won’t be able to heal anymore until you rest for a few hours. If someone hits you when you can’t heal, you’re screwed.” She explained, Lamb nodded.
Every player in Alyzia has a set amount of healing magic. It can heal all wounds instantly; it can even heal a chopped off head. However, doing so uses up the healing magic. The greater the damage, the more health it requires. Once you’re out of healing magic, you won’t be able to heal again until your health replenishes. It takes about 12 hours for a player’s healing magic to slowly replenish from no health to full. If you receive a fatal wound whilst you don’t have enough health to heal it: as Epona put it… “You’re screwed.”
Though it’s called ‘healing magic’, it’s primarily done using one’s qi.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Good hit, you didn’t even need to use your weapon!” Epona replied.
Lamb chuckled, “About that..”
“Hmmm?” She asked, “Hey.. I punched you as hard as I could and you barely flinched, whereas you didn’t even kick that hard, and you broke my knee, what gives?”
Lamb made a nonchalant gesture, “Get good.”
“I should’ve told you I was in the arctic.” Epona huffed.
“I’d rather be in the arctic, than go to Denmark.” Lamb declared. Epona started kicking him, it was for the pride of her country.
“I’d rather talk to seals than speak Dutch!” Lamb cried, as Epona rained boots on him.
“It’s Danish! Not Dutch! They’re two different languages!” Epona corrected.
“I’d rather learn Swiss!”
“Swear to God, I’m gonna kill you!” Epona threatened. This was common banter between them; it usually started with Epona calling Americans dumb. “So what is your weapon?” She asked, getting back on topic, sparring Lamb this time.
“First tell me about your build.” Lamb asked.
“I have poisonous sais!” She gloated, “From the cola— gen-geloo..” she stumbled, fumbling the words. She pulled out two sharp metal sais, the dagger-class weapons had 3 sharp prongs, and glowed a faint red when she focused magic into them. “I knew I wanted to be a rogue, but I didn’t want to use boring old knives, so I decided to get these!”
“Nice, sais are one of my top 5 favourite weapons!” He agreed, “I’m surprised you didn’t choose wooden clogs.”
“They’re called Træsko, and I knew you’d say that fucker!”
“I’m too predicable.” Lamb bowed, hanging his head in shame.
“I’m surprised YOU didn’t pick expensive health care.”
“My guide said that was to OP.” Lamb replied, laughing at his country’s expense. Poor America.
“Plus, with you here, you can help me figure out how to use them— fight and do cool tricks and stuff.” She motioned, gesturing her sais around, posing in fanciful fighting stance, battling off imaginary shadow ninjas.
“Absolutely,” Lamb promised, he never actually learned how to use sais, but he was confident he could figure something out.
“And for my powers, I wanted some kind of poison, but not regular poison, so I decided on being able to debuff my opponent. If I stab someone, they’ll become weak, and then… since we’re on the same team—”
“I can jump in and take their head off!”
“Exactly!” She boasted, “I figured you’d get a really big buff weapon, so you can deal damage and I’ll be support.”
“Does your debuff also work if you throw it?” Lamb asked.
Epona focused her magic into her sai and threw it into the ground, “yup, that’s what I’ve been practicing.” Lamb was very impressed.
“So what kind of weapon did you choose? Don’t tell me you picked a sword.” She laughed. “I’d disown you.”
“It was tempted to pick a katana…” Lamb fidgeted, “well actually.. I didn’t really pick a weapon..”
“Ohhh..” she replied, “so you chose to focus on magic instead? You’ll be the wizard of the group? Huh… I never saw you as the caster type before…”
“I can’t use any magic either.”
“What…” Epona was so confused. “So… what did you pick then?”
“Well so… instead of weapons or magic, there’s actually a third option.. it’s a hidden mechanic…” Lamb explained the hidden qi mechanic, the inner qi power everyone in Alyzia possessed but no one was aware of.
“So there’s this whole new powerset they kept hidden from us?”
“Yup, the guide said since magic was so much more powerful and easy to use, they didn’t bother explaining qi to starting players cuz they didn’t want to drown them in too much information.”
“You got to teach me how to use it.”
“I gotta figure out how to do it first,” he agreed, “where can we train?”
“You want to train already? You just got here, let me show you around.”
“We can do that after, I’ve been twiddling my thumbs at home for 2 days, I want to get started now!”
“Fine fine, but let me show you the ‘rest station’ first, let’s make our party official!” She proposed.
“I thought we were already in a party? I pressed the ‘yes’ button.”
“Almost,” she answered.
Epona led Lamb to a medium sized hut the size of a gas station, it was a designated rest and leisure spot. It was a 2 minute walk from the tents where Lamb was, they stepped inside and Epona stopped them. She waved her hand in the air, and a big notification appeared:
‘Official Party Formation - Epona + Bandit Chicken, Yes / No’
She laughed, “Bandit Chicken?”
“Nice to meet you.” Lamb replied.
“We can only see notification panels inside rest stations like this place.” She explained as she pressed ‘Yes’.
“Congratulations, on forming an official party,” an omniscient female voice announced, “please designate a Party Leader, and Party Name. Only the party leader may add and remove members from the party, please inquire your local rest station for detailed instructions.”
“What should our party name be? Can we be called Team Denmark?” Epona suggested.
“That’s a great name, but I don’t think I’m Danish enough for Team Denmark.”
“Oh man.”
“How about Team Chicken?” Lamb suggested.
“That’s stupid,” Epona laughed. “How about… hmm..” She thought for a while longer, “we both don’t like swords, how about team no swords?”
“I like it, but it might be mean if we meet someone with a sword though.” Lamb responded.
“What about Team Swordless?” Epona pitched.
“I love it! But what about.. even better… Team Swordless Chicken?” Lamb pitched hopefully, Epona rolled her eyes.
“Team Swordless, and I’m the leader.”
“Deal.” Lamb replied.
“We will be Team Swordless, led by me.” Epona told the voice.
“Very well, Epona, Leader of Team Swordless, you have 2 additional party slots remaining. May the winds grace you.” The voice replied as the display vanished.
“Come on, let’s see your stats.” She waved her hand and a new display appeared in the air. Lamb tried to touch it, but just like the subtitles, his hands passed right through.
Alzian #4,786
Residency: The Persian Empire
Age: 24
Race: Sorceress
Weapons: Traditional Sais of the Kōga-ryū clan
Magical Abilities: Poisonous Debuff
Name: Epona
Party Affiliation: Team Swordless - Leader, Founding Member
“You’re 24?!”
“Shut up.” She glared at him.
“Dose this place have a retirement home?”
“I swear to God..” She murmured something in Danish, no subtitles appeared though.
“My highest stat is cognition, I figured I’d take the role of a strategist slash support. I’ll analyze the situations and come up with stratagems” she mused, “and send you to your death.” She murmured.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” she batted, “Let’s see yours.”
Lamb tried waving his hand around, copying what she did. Nothing happened, no screen appeared.
“You really didn’t get any magic at all, did you?”
“Not a drop. Wait, does that mean I can’t do that— thingy?”
“Keep trying, you probably just suck at it.”
Lamb kept waving his hand like a kid begging to be picked at kickball.
, “Think about activating it.” Epona said.
Lamb waved his hands in the air, “Display appear.” He declared.
“Don’t say it aloud dummy!”
Lamb tried again, speaking aloud: “Display appear!” The display appeared before them.
Alyzian #12,045
Residency: The Persian Empire
Age: 23
Race: Human, unmodified
Weapons: None
Magical Abilities: None
Title: The Magnificent Kicker
Name: Bandit Chicken
Party Affiliation: Team Swordless - Founding Member
“Wow, you really do have nothing…” Epona mused, as she read over his stats.
Lamb shrugged.
“Wait, you got a title?”
chapter end