“Careful. That patrol is still out here somewhere.” Said Starla as they continued down paths deeper into the cave system. “We’re almost there though.”

Adelynn kept her claymore ready, the cavern here was more than sufficient to swing it around. They went past a large crack in the wall and Starla started squeezing through it into a small passageway that opened up into a huge cavern. In front of them was a bridge of stone connected to a large, stoney, spherical nodule. From what Adelynn could tell, the spherical nodule wasn’t connected to any of the walls or the ceiling, but there was water below and darkness all around it.

“There’s this bridge and a bridge on the other side.” Said Starla. “But what we want is inside.”

“It’s huge!” said Adelynn. “Must be roomy inside.”

“Indeed, it is!” yelled a new voice. “At the end of the bridge and in front of the entrance was another player. He was wearing a black cloak and black leather. “Care to pay the entrance fee?”

Starla looked annoyed. “Is it zero coins?”

“Ha ha!” he said not actually laughing. “Must be a bard on a comedy tour! No, the fee is two hundred gold, but that’s my special price for you.”

“Cool.” Said Starla grabbing her earring to transmit to Adelynn. “So, this player wants to fight. He’s a level fifty rogue who for some reason hasn’t gotten a subclass yet. We can attack him at the same time if you want, but you’ll want something faster than your claymore.”

“I put something on it earlier to make it faster.” Said Adelynn. Starla took a look and saw she’d engraved several speed runes on the thing. Most people would put damage on such a weapon and Starla had never seen someone increase its speed stat to maximum. At that speed it would be about as fast to whip around a stick and not a heavy sword.

“Okay. New plan. Pretend to be slow.” Said Starla. “He clearly thinks he has the upper hand versus a priestess and a newb.”

“Right. So, I distract him and you’ll hit him?” replied Adelynn. “Or vice versa?”

“Honestly, I think I’ll be distracting him and you’ll be hitting him and when you get his attention, I’ll hit him hard.” Replied Starla.

“Okay!” Adelynn held her claymore and held it like a child would hold a heavy broom. The rogue smirked as she let the tip thud to the ground. “I’ll take you on!” she said.

The rogue nodded and dove at her. He was pretty fast and Adelynn managed to get out of the way of his first swing, but his follow up clipped her. She awkwardly swung her claymore in his direction and he jumped over her attack. She was thinking about how she could have scored a hit on him if she was being serious.

Behind her she heard Starla chanting a spell.

From the burning heart of light

In the place where flame is laid bare,

Adelynn wasn’t familiar with this one, but if light and flame were involved, she probably shouldn’t be looking at this dude when it went off. He glanced up for a moment and looked at Starla as power collected in her staff. “Wait, what’s that spell?”

Adelynn took her moment of distraction and swung her claymore with amazing speed. Her blade dug deep into the rogue’s side and he staggered back. “The hell?” he said before glaring daggers at Adelynn.

“I was taking it easy on you newb.” He said. “Now I’ll just kill you and throw your corpse where it’ll never be found.” He readied up to come at her with everything.

Go forth and win me this fight,

Show them the fury of Mega Flare!

“What!?” said the rogue. Bright spheres of light appeared all around him and with a very strange ‘zwoop zwoop zwoop’ noise entered his body and then erupted in a bright flame that engulfed him entirely with a thundering roar. Adelynn wasn’t sure if that would end him, but his scream was genuine and horrifying.

The fire around him faded and he collapsed to his knees, still breathing, but clearly had better days. Adelynn already knew he was still dangerous and proceeded to swing her claymore at his head. She connected with the side of his helmet and knocked it off to reveal a large gash and broken bone underneath. She quickly followed up her attack with another to the other side of his head and he weakly attempted to stop her attack with the dagger in his left hand, but he was too wounded to muster any effective response. Her blade bit deep into his face and he gurgle screamed as he went down.

“I’m betting he has an ally on the bridge on the other side.” Said Starla.

Adelynn backed up while Starla started chanting her spell again. Another rogue, not as well equipped as the last one ran out and looked at his buddy. “What the hell!?”

Starla finished her casting, “Mega Flare!” The new attacker was not ready for a surprise mega flare and after the ‘zwoop zwoop zwoop –Thoom!’ he fell straight to the ground instead of staying up. Adelynn ran over and stabbed him just to be sure. The first rogue was making angry emotes over his corpse and the second was now sending up question marks.

“Wow. Where’d you learn to be that vicious?” asked Starla. “You didn’t even ask them to surrender.”

Adelynn shrugged. “My partner says that once someone is hurting to keep it up until they beg to surrender.”

“Partner?” said Starla raising an eyebrow.

“Yes. The partner in my firm.” Explained Adelynn. Starla visibly relaxed, but Adelynn wasn’t looking in her direction. “He’ll go after a person and keep picking away at them and their assets until they’re completely destitute; if they don’t beg him to stop.”

“Right, well, good job on your first PVP.” Said Starla.

“Thanks!” said Adelynn. “What do we do with these guys?”

Starla squatted down next to the first rogue and picked up some token off him. “You can get these off a downed player.” Said Starla. “You can spend them on various things. Adelynn and Starla looted the tokens off the two bodies and Starla addressed them. “You want a res?” The less geared rogue started making the universal sign of ‘Yes, Please!’, the praying hands emote. The first rogue took his time and followed suit.

“Cool, I don’t think I can trust you, so you’re getting a temporary blast jewel, alright?” Rogue one gave her a grumble face emote and the other one showed a green check mark. Starla put a marble in the gut of each of the rogues and cast her spell that brought all their bits back together and set them to one hit point.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The first one sat up. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Just a wandering priestess.” Replied Starla.

“Bullshit.” Replied the rogue. Starla shrugged.

“If I was someone else, I’d probably extort money or items off you to not detonate the blast jewel in there, but I’m not that kind of person.” Starla smiled. “The next raise dead spell will cost you a hundred grand, so don’t die on the way out.”

“I’ll remember this!” said the rogue as he ran out of the chamber.

“What? The time you got your ass kicked?” responded Starla. The other rogue shook his head.

“Sorry about that, he’s just like that.”

“Unreasonable?”

“Yeah, something like that.” He said. “Look, uh, can I pay for a healing spell and a teleport out of here?”

“A teleport? What makes you think I have that?” said Starla.

“You just hit me with Mega Flare?” he replied. “Any sorceress worth their weight is going to have teleport.”

Starla shrugged. “Yeah, I’m not a priestess. I can send you to Moonsorrow, Black Anvil, Bismuth Bay or a mystery location.”

“Where is the mystery location?” asked the rogue.

Starla smiled. “It’s a mystery! But it isn’t here!”

The rogue shrugged. “Whatever, better than Elf-land, Dwarf-land or Anthro-land. How much?”

“Mmmm, five for the healing and twenty for the teleport.” He forked over the coin and Starla healed him. She then spent a moment drawing a circle on the ground and energized it. The rogue stepped into the circle, it glowed for a moment and he was gone in a flash.

“So where is ‘Mystery location’?” asked Adelynn.

“It’s about six thousand miles—” she spun in a circle and then pointed. “That way! He won’t hate it probably, it’s warm forest and has a nice beach and only a few terrifying monsters.”

Adelynn gave her a bit of a look. “Why did you keep that location for teleporting?”

“In case I needed to teleport someone who attacked me elsewhere.”

“Oh.”

Starla shrugged. “Let’s go in. There isn’t a bridge. The inside of the sphere has no gravity so you’ll float.”

Adelynn stepped inside felt herself float off the end of the bridge. Once inside, she was met with a beautiful twinkling field of stars. Starla followed her in and the light on her staff lit up the world around them. Millions of crystals shimmered all around them creating untold numbers of bright stars.

Starla took Adelynn’s arm and positioned them in the middle of the wide spherical chamber. “Don’t panic, okay?” she said and turned the light on her staff off. For a moment the world went pitch black and Adelynn squirmed and shivered thinking of oblivion, but then in the darkness something below them began to glow. She looked down and a strange smooth moon seemed to pool below them. The crystals reflected the light from the ‘moon’ and sparkled in the darkness.

“It’s like being in outer space!” said Adelynn. “But with many more stars.”

Starla was smiling in the dim light. “This is one of my favorite places.” She said. “I’d get some friends to keep an eye out on the entrances and then just float in here and contemplate the magic system that Mythticle has and try to tweak and fiddle with how to best put things together.”

Adelynn looked at the moon below. “What is it?”

“A puddle of some kind of luminous fluid that I’ve never found a use for.” Said Starla. “It stops glowing when removed from this chamber and doesn’t taste very good outside either, but in here, it’ll help restore magic power and heal wounds.”

Adelynn drifted down towards the liquid. “Think I can have some?”

Starla sighed. “Of course you can, but it’s not something you’ll want to keep outside of here.”

“Maybe just a taste then.” Said Adelynn as she floated toward it. She pulled a cup out of her inventory and dipped it in the glowing liquid. She took a cautious sip; sweetness with a hint of salty. She drank the whole thing and felt her heart quiver for a moment.

Her heart beat in her ears and she closed her eyes. Was something happening to her body? She heard a voice, but it wasn’t Starla’s. It was far away and seemed to be impressed by her? Maybe? She couldn’t tell. She wanted to yell out to the voice and ask it who it was, but nothing would come out of her mouth.

Then just as quickly as it started it was gone and she was hovering over the glowing liquid. “What was that?” she asked.

“What was what?” asked Starla.

“Uh, I heard a voice when I drank the water.”

“Weird. I didn’t. Some people have heard a faraway voice. Hell, I’ve heard it, but not here.”

“Oh?’

“Yeah.” Said Starla without elaborating.

“Well, this is a very pretty place.” Said Adelynn. “Should we be heading back topside to get to the farmer at midnight?”

“Sure.”

The two floated up to the exit and landed back on the bridge. “How much you wanna bet that rogue is waiting for us?” said Starla. “He could be right around that corner.” The two of heard footsteps scamper away and then a lizardman screamed in the distance followed by another more human scream of surprise.

Starla shrugged and began drawing a circle on the ground. “There’s not a lot of room for circles here, so I need you to get close.” Adelynn moved closer and Starla grabbed her waist and pulled her close. She felt her warmth, smelled her scent and averted her eyes while Starla said some nonsense words. There was a flash and they were again outside the cave.

“You could have teleported that guy here.” Said Adelynn.

“Maybe.” Said Starla.

“You’re kind of a bitch.” Said Adelynn with a grin.

Starla shrugged. “I don’t appreciate people who try to extort others and prey on those weaker than them.” Starla pulled out her car so they could get back to the farm on time. After they got in and Starla was driving, she casually mentioned that Adelynn should check her status page.

Adelynn opened it up and looked through to see if there was anything regarding the mysterious voice. She did notice that she was now level fifteen and had a new bar under her hit point bar. “Uh, I’m level fifteen and I have an MP bar now.”

“Why?” said Starla to nobody in particular. “I mean I know why you’re level fifteen, we beat up higher level players and plenty of lizard adjacent things. I mean ‘Why do you have an MP bar?’. Fast fighter types don’t get any MP until twenty-five when they can take paladin or some other class that has some MP.”

“You’re asking me? The person who is doing everything wrong?”

Starla shook her head. “No, I’m just saying it out loud to mull it over.” She reached up and touched her earring. “Hey Avara. Yeah. I’m good. Look, Adee just hit fifteen and got an MP pool. Do you know anything about that? Yeah, that’s what I said. What do you mean by that? You can’t elaborate at this time or you won’t? You can’t. Okay, see you later.”

Adelynn looked at Starla for a moment. “You called me Adee.”

“Yeah? Seems like a good nickname.” Said Starla.

“So, what couldn’t she elaborate on?”

Starla shrugged. “When I asked her, she just said that the spirits have told her that you’re ‘special’.”

“Is that good or bad?” asked Adelynn.

Starla turned a corner and drove through one of the farmer’s fields. “Probably good? I mean, Avara says very few people are special, so take it for what it is?”

“Alright.” Adelynn closed her status panel and waited for them to arrive. The moon overhead was bright and far less pockmarked than Earth’s moon. It shimmered in the sky with a iridescence that was far brighter than expected.

They got out and Adelynn waited until two minutes before midnight to turn in the quest. The farmer thanked her for rescuing his heirloom and then said she could have any horse she wanted from his barn. At midnight exactly Adelynn hit ‘accept’ and walked over to the barn.

Once inside a single horse was standing in a moonbeam from a hole in the ceiling. Its hair was shimmering like silver and its eyes were a beautiful pale purple. It let out a whinny and Adelynn knew she’d found her horse. She walked over to it and put her hand on its forehead. She felt a vitality with the creature, like what she would expect from a living horse in reality, but this felt deeper than that.

“It might be cliché, but I think I want to name you Silver.”

Silver snorted. She took him out of the stall and barn and climbed on. With a snap of the reins, they were off. Adelynn felt like she wasn’t totally in control of Silver, but he would take her commands as suggestions. She rode through the fields whooping as she went.

“Damn. That thing is fast.” Said Starla. “Hey Buddy.” She said to the farmer. “Why’d I get a brown horse that doesn’t go that fast.” The farmer shrugged, went back inside and closed the door behind him.

“Whatever.” Said Starla. She pulled out the mount she used the most when she was alone. A chonky broom with a comfy seat and golden bristles. It spit cartoony looking stars out of the bristles when she flew with it and she thought it was both cute and fitting.

She launched herself up into the air and went after Adelynn, who was busy running in a straight line to nowhere. Starla touched her Adelynn earring and asked her how she liked it.

“I love it!” said Adelynn. “Let me turn around and go back.”

“I’m in the sky near you, I’ll come down.”

They met again together and Starla saw the biggest grin on Adelynn’s face. “This is the best part of Mythticle so far.” She said.

“I’m glad you like him. You’ll be riding him for a bit to get to Black Anvil. That’s where the next story quest happens at level twenty.”

“Great!” said Adelynn. “Let’s go!”

“Uh. It’s midnight and we haven’t slept in a while. We can either sleep in Tharnhaven or sleep in a damn tent.”

Adelynn thought for a moment. “Alright. Back to Tharnhaven then. How do I make you go slow?”

Silver snorted. He certainly wasn’t going to tell her.