Starla took Adelynn through the forest and down a path that was not clearly marked. They came to a crossroads and Adelynn took her down the north path. At another crossroads Starla turned right and then right again at the next crossroads.
“Why are we walking in these directions?” asked Adelynn.
“The woods have an enchantment to confuse outsiders.” Said Starla taking Adelynn down the left path at the final crossroad. They came out into a clearing that had a cave entrance surrounded in large amethyst crystals. There was another group of players here, but they didn’t seem to pay any attention to Starla and Adelynn.
“Do you have a short sword?” asked Starla.
“Yes, I kept a level eight one.” She pulled it out and showed it to Starla. It had never been used.
“Probably best if you use that in the cave. It’s pretty tight and claymores don’t quite have the room to swing.”
Adelynn made a face that spoke of her disappointment. She got a new sword and she wanted to hit something with it. She shrugged and pulled out a second short sword that was nearly identical to the first.
Starla noticed the weapon in each hand. “Are you okay to dual wield?”
“Yeah?”
“I thought you were one of the strong fighter types, since they normally use claymores.”
Adelynn shook her head. “Nope, I’m a fast fighter type.”
Starla led her into the cave wondering how she put her stat points in order to be a fast fighter type and still swing a huge sword. Starla was still wondering when she heard Adelynn behind her oohing and ahhing at a big crystal formation.
“What?” asked Starla.
“It’s pretty!” said Adelynn “Think I can bust a piece off?”
“Probably, it grows back, but it’ll fill up your inventory faster that way.”
Adelynn pulled a fist sized and highly fractured amethyst off the wall and stowed it away. “There!” Starla wondered if Adelynn was going to be the ‘packrat’ style player. Together the two of them ventured further inside.
They descended deeper into the cave system with Starla’s glowing staff lighting the way. “We’ll probably hit some lizzies soon.”
“Lizzies?” asked Adelynn.
“This cave is home to various types of dangerous lizard things. Lizard men, lizard dog things and lizard lizards.”
“Like crocodiles?”
Starla nodded. “Yep, but not as smart as crocs. Do you want to take point? You have more armor than I do.”
“Sure.” Starla squeezed past Adelynn and smelled the scent of the cool, night sky on her. It was not something she expected. Adelynn pulled out her two short swords and continued down the path. After some walking, she saw some eyes peering out of her in the darkness. If she was alone, she probably would have turned and started walking the other way.
“Oh! Lucky.” Said Starla, “It’s just a single lizard man. They can’t be reasoned with and will probably just attack us.”
The lizard man screeched and began running toward them. The tunnel was only about six feet tall and maybe eight feet across, Adelynn definitely wouldn’t have been able to swing her claymore.
“Concentrate on hitting it!” said Starla. “I’ll focus on defense!”
“Okay!” said Adelynn as she ran at it herself. She felt confident that Starla knew what she was doing. The lizard man attempted to stab Adelynn with its spear and she was able to dodge to the side of the strike. Adelynn swung her right hand sword at the beast and missed, but she followed it up with a left hand slice and tagged it. It didn’t take a lot of damage from her weaker hand, but it was now trying to track both of the weapons. It tried to stab Adelynn again and she wasn’t going to be able to avoid the attack, until the spear bounced off a glowing sphere and hit the wall. The glowing sphere was connected to Starla’s staff by a thin tendril of magic.
“See? I got you.”
Adelynn nodded and swung at the things face with her left hand this time. It bent its head back to avoid the sword, but left its belly wide open. Adelynn took a step forward and thrust the right hand sword into the lizard mans gut down to the hilt. It squealed in shock and Adelynn followed up with her left hand driving that blade into the creature’s chest. It stopped squealing as it exploded into green mist and a small bag fell to the ground.
“These might be too easy for you.” Said Starla as she tossed the bag to Adelynn. “The bags will stack in your inventory and the contents won’t, so wait until we’re out to open them.”
“Oh, okay.” Adelynn added one lizard bag to her inventory.
They continued down in the cave, fighting some more lizard men and running into some of their lizard dogs. They didn’t encounter a ‘lizard lizard’ quite yet, but Adlynn was hoping. The tunnel branched off a few times and Starla was able to give Adelynn directions while they kept going. They eventually came out in a larger cave that had a lake and lights across the lake.
“Wow.” Said Adelynn. The cave had to have been three hundred feet at its apex and easily a mile long or more.
“Lizard city.” Said Starla pointing. “Fortunately, we’re not going there. You alright with swimming?”
“Yeah, I know how to swim.”
“Great.” Starla handed her a potion. “That’ll give you water breathing for a half an hour. Hold my hand, it gets kind of murky down there.”
Adelynn nodded and took the potion. It tasted a bit salty and a bit earthy, not really unpleasant, just not very delicious. She and Starla waded into the water and dove in. The water was rather chilly, but Adelynn held Starla’s hand while they sank deeper and deeper into the water.
Starla touched her earring and mouthed the words. Adelynn could hear her from her own earring. “We’re going down into the deepest part of the lake. There’s a hole that just keeps going down. There might be ugly ass fish down here, but the only one we need to worry about is a huge angler fish.”
Adelynn grabbed her own earring and responded. “You could have told me before we jumped in.” The water wasn’t hard to breathe, but tasted like breathing in a cloud of dust, with all the murk from the lake in her mouth. “Also, yuck.”
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All the light from the surface had dimmed to nothing and Starla ignited her staff brighter than before. Adelynn could see about ten feet in the gloom. They touched down at the bottom and Starla looked for signs of the hole she wanted. About twenty feet out they spotted it; a dark hole leading further down into the ground. Adelynn saw something out of the corner of her eye and reflexively pulled out her claymore as an enormous fish with spears for teeth came out of the gloom.
The water made reacting harder than usual, but Adelynn got her new sword around and thrust it forward into the gaping maw. The tip of her sword pierced into the soft pallet of the giant fish and it clamped down on her arms. Its long teeth missed her arms, but it still was unpleasant having its bony jaw clamp down on her. Unfortunately for the fish, it pushed the sword deeper into its head causing the tip of the blade to poke out the fish’s forehead.
Starla saw the bobbing lantern in the water and followed it to where Adelynn was fighting with the giant angler. With a slow jump in the direction of the fish she swung her staff and touched it to the weapon. With a few words a blast of electricity cascaded through the angler and its eyes bugged out and it was still.
With a bit of effort Starla was able to pry the fish’s jaws apart and free Adelynn. Adelynn, now free from the monster, stabbed it again and again until it dissolved into bluish mist and dropped a glowing blob that looked organic, but was hard like glass. Adelynn scooped it up and put it into her bag.
The two continued their descent into the depths until the cavern opened into another area. The water was much cleaner here and tasted like fresh spring water. With a bit more swimming Starla showed Adelynn a hole that was shimmering like a mirror above them and swam up into it. Adelynn was surprised to find that the shimmering was just the surface as she broke through into a deep dark cavern.
There were voices and music coming from one of the passages. “We can go dry off there if you want.” Offered Starla.
“What is it?” asked Adelynn.
“Someone is crazy and bought the land down here. They built a tavern called the Deep Dive. It has good booze.”
Adelynn couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a drink, but she thought she could use one now. She still had bruises on her arms and Starla threw a quick healing spell on her. Together they turned the corner and a wooden door was pressed into a corner.
“The story goes that the owner was looking for secret passages and squished himself into every corner down here. He didn’t find a passage, but he found that there was a place that allowed him to buy land. It’s probably a glitch, but it’s still here so a game master hasn’t removed it. Last I heard they said it was valid.”
Starla opened the small door crammed into a corner and stooped to get in. Inside was a brightly lit, warm tavern with music from a bard in the corner. About twenty players were down here eating and making merry. A few barmaids and a bartender handled everything out front and the spirits were fairly high. One of the barmaids approached.
“Oh hi! Welcome to the Deep Dive. You appear to be soaked, would you like to wash and dry up first?”
Starla nodded. “Yes, please. I have this, if you could keep it on the down low.” Starla handed the girl a card made of thick silver. The girl looked it over, handed it back and nodded.
“Right this way ladies.” She said ushering them to a door. Once inside the door and away from the crowd she led them to a blank section of wall and knocked on it. A door that hadn’t been there opened and she got out of the way. “Enjoy your stay!” she said.
“Thanks. Probably won’t be too long!” replied Starla.
“What was that?” asked Adelynn when the barmaid had left.
“A perpetual pass to the VIP sections of the Deep Dive. We have the best accommodations because I did favors for the owner and paid in a substantial amount on the initial buy in. The owner is nice, but didn’t have enough cash to buy all the land he could and supplies, so he sold those.”
Adelynn looked around her. The room was very nice. It was done up in warm woods and some Asian styling, with paper panel doors and walls that glowed from lights behind them. There was a large shower, a large tub, a cushy bench and a device that looked like a fantasy clothes dryer.
“Put your stuff in there.” Said Starla pulling off all her things. “It’ll clean and dry them in under three minutes.”
“Wow, would be nice in reality.”
Starla shrugged. “A lot of things would be nice in reality, like some of the ‘useless’ spells of Mythticle.”
“Useless?”
“Spells that do things that power gamers think are worthless. Here, step in the shower and I’ll throw one on you.”
“Uhhh.”
“It’s fine!” said Starla. “Trust me on this one, okay?”
Adelynn clambered into the shower and Starla intoned some spell in her direction. The shower didn’t turn on but she was surrounded by a golden ring that started spraying warm water and phantom hands that scrubbed her off. It spent the majority of its time spraying and washing her hair and she was done in just a few minutes. “See? Useless because it doesn’t kill monsters.”
Adelynn stepped out with a towel around her. “Its not very fun. What if you hit a monster made of fire with it.”
Starla put her finger to her cheek and thought for a moment. “I don’t know, but you can bet I’m doing that next time I encounter one. Either it’ll douse them down and cause damage or we’ll get a clean fire elemental, who might still be very sad.”
Adelynn chuckled at the mental image of a campfire with a frowny face as Starla got in the shower to rinse off the lake muck. Starla used the shower properly.
“What about your spell?” said Adelynn.
“I hate it.” Said Starla. “Showers should be enjoyed, not rushed.” Starla couldn’t see Adelynn sticking her tongue out at her through the frosted glass walls. The clothing cleaner dinged and Adelynn pulled out her gear and put it back on; it was clean and warm. She took a moment to check out the stats on Starla’s gear. It was high level stuff, but nothing above level forty.
“Why are you wearing weaker gear?” asked Adelynn.
“I can’t hide too well if I’m wearing level fifty-seven gear.” Replied Starla. “Besides, that stuff is kinda sexy, don’t you think? Shows off the curves, but has the element of mystery for the face and legs.”
“I guess.” Said Adelynn. “It looks like you made it yourself.”
“I did!” said Starla. “I like the advanced designing features of Mythticle. It’s like making a pattern in reality, but a bit less obnoxious than using paper and whatever else.”
“I bet Avara helped.” Said Adelynn.
“Of course, Avara helped, but only to find me a brilliant seamstress to learn under.”
“Oh? I thought she would have taught you.” Said Adelynn.
“She knows a lot, but she’s not an expert in everything.” Said Starla turning off the shower and stepping out of the shower.
Adelynn turned around quickly. “Can you please not just do that?”
“Do what?” asked Starla gathering her things. “Ahhh warm…”
“Just be out there, like that.”
“Oh, sorry.” Said Starla. “I guess I’m not used to partying with people who care about that kind of thing. I’ll try to keep it in mind.”
“So do I wear my nice clothing to dinner?”
“You can wear whatever, but since we’re actually in a dangerous place most people just stay in combat armor.” Replied Starla.
“How are you going to eat with your — uhh – veil.”
“I’ll take it off. I can get us a private table.” Said Starla finishing getting her things equipped properly. “Ready?”
“Sure.” Starla led them back into the main room and nodded to the barmaid. She led them through another door into a different back room with a quiet table for two. There was a window leading out into the dungeon and the cavern beyond was lit by multicolored magical lights. There were some monsters patrolling and occasionally someone would show up and fight them. Starla would make commentary on if she thought they’d win or lose.
The food they’d ordered came out and was delicious. Starla sighed and asked for a moment to go eat something in reality. Adelynn thought it would be weird to be alone, but Starla told her she’d be quick. She vanished and Adelynn stayed put waiting for her.
After a moment the barmaid returned and Adelynn ordered a chocolate cheesecake dessert and enjoyed it very much. Another ten minutes passed and Starla popped back in.
“There! Faster than last time!”
Adelynn smiled. “Yes, much.” Outside the window an adventurer got into a fight with three lizardmen and some lizard dogs and at least one lizard lizard. He was getting a few good shots in, but the lizard lizard got him by the leg and the lizardman stabbed him in the chest. “Should we go save him?”
“Sure, why not.” Said Starla putting her veil back up. The two of them got up and paid the tab and continued on. They came to the hapless adventurer who could only make emotes pop up in the air above him and he was spamming the sad face.
Starla laughed at him, waved her staff and threw out a spell that pulled all his bits back together and then gave him a hit point. She then hit him with a few healing spells and he thanked her and ran the opposite direction; clearly he’d had enough.
Starla and Adelynn continued down the path. Starla grabbed Adelynn’s hand and hurried them up. “Come this way, it’s right in this next chamber!”