Taloc and Vanya had almost made it to Isla and Maroftis when something flashed red on each of the two fallen swordsmen, who then stood back up. They were able to shout a warning to the others who had their backs to the previously downed swordsmen, and Maroftis pivoted to defend from the rear attack. Taloc made it to the fray in time to cut down one of the previously fallen figures, and he stabbed it again once it was down for good measure. Vanya took up a position behind a pillar, putting it between her and the enemy caster. Vultressant was standing out in the open, and Vanya assumed it was to draw the fire away from the others, but it appeared to be risky, and that was not really Vultressant’s style. Vanya readied an arrow to shoot at the mage in the hopes of distracting it from her other friends, but she wanted to make sure that she did not put herself at risk—like Taloc said, she was the only healer.

Vanya took a shot, and the arrow struck the caster in the torso, but it seemed not to even notice. She checked her battle log, and the hit registered no damage. She abandoned that strategy and tried to watch the melee for an open shot. Isla had downed another one of the swordsmen, and they were back to fighting just four of them. Now that she had a better look at the robed figures, Vanya could see their faces, and they appeared to be some sort of demon. Green-skinned faces protruded from the cowls of the robes to reveal that each of them had a large gem in the center of its forehead. She supposed that these could be another type of Orc, but the features were significantly different. She looked at the name and HP bar of the one that Taloc was fighting. It was called a Demon Cultist, and it was nearly out of HP.

Maroftis had just scored another kill, evening the odds, when one of the two downed demons rose again. This time, Vanya spotted the gemstone in its forehead flash red prior to its revival. “Look out!” she called. “The gem on the forehead is healing them!”

Taloc turned to intercept the add, and Vanya ran over to the fallen one that Taloc had skewered while it was down. She kneeled down and picked up its sword. She thought about decapitating it, but she did not know if she had the strength or the stomach to do that. Instead, she opted to strike the gem by smashing it with the butt of the sword. It shattered, sending a small wave of power in all directions. Vanya felt it go through her, but the shock of it was nothing compared to that of the creature turning into green goo and seeping into the temple floor. Nothing was left of it, not even the robes it had previously worn.

Vanya made her way to the other fallen demon while trying to avoid the other combatants and keeping an eye on the flying mage. By the time that she made it to the body, Maroftis had disarmed another and grabbed it in a bear hug before head-butting it. The gem shattered, and the demon liquified in his arms. This gave Vanya an opening to the only demon currently on the ground, and she again kneeled next to it and smashed the sword butt into the gem.

Maroftis pointed at the floating mage. “The Goblin is weaker now. Take it out!” he called. Vanya wondered how he knew that it had changed, but it must have something to do with the Berserker’s assess other skill. She targeted the creature floating above, and her HUD displayed the name “Goblin Summoner” along with his status bars. The health bar was full, but the mana and energy bars were each under 25%.

Vanya ran for cover and made another shot at the Summoner. This time it did some damage, but the creature still barely noticed the strike. Vultressant seemed to be having better luck now as well. Vanya thought that it was likely that the Demon Cultists were feeding the Goblin somehow, so those needed to be killed first. She didn’t relay this information to the others since Vultressant was doing a good job keeping the Goblin busy, and the others were already trying to dispatch the demons. Instead, she shot at the one that Maroftis was fighting, mostly because if she missed and hit Maroftis by mistake, then he would heal faster than the others. Her first shot did go wide, but her second was a solid strike in the side, which gave Maroftis an opening to claw out the demon’s throat. Maroftis was on it the instant that it hit the ground, and he slammed a claw into the gem, shattering it.

This time, Vanya could see the circle of light around the Summoner dim when the gem was broken, confirming her theory. When Taloc disengaged to leave the two remaining demons with Maroftis and Isla, Vanya called a warning to him. “Stay on the adds!” she commanded. “They’re feeding the Goblin power somehow.” Taloc considered her words and then returned to fight the demons. Vultressant apparently took her words to heart as well, because he moved closer to the melee and sent a spray of frost at one of the demons instead of attacking the caster. The others attacked it while it was distracted, quickly dispatching it, and the last one went down shortly after that. When the last demon had been turned to goo, the light in the center of the temple went out, and the candles around the circle provided the only light in the area besides the entrance. The caster dropped to the ground, albeit more slowly than gravity would normally allow, and when he landed, Vultressant sent a large bolt of fire that connected with the creature’s head. By the size of the bolt, the spell had been charged significantly, and the Goblin mage fell to the floor.

Taloc scanned the room. “Where the hell did Ewt get off to? His HP is almost at 0!”

Vultressant looked exhausted, and he wobbled a bit as he said. “When the caster dropped the bomb on you guys, he ran off after that Orc.” Vanya went to Vultressant to heal some of the damage that he had taken from the spell barrage; the Goblin had been focused on him after his initial blast of fire. She probed him for damage, but he held up a hand and said, “Later. Let’s find Ewt first.” She nodded, put his arm around her neck, and walked with him while supporting him as best she could.

In the back of the temple, there was a large statue of a beast that looked similar to those outside, and on both sides of it were open doorways. They chose the opening on the right and entered cautiously. The passage led to a large room, where they found Ewtain lying on the floor and the Orc lying dead a few feet away from him. Vanya helped Vultressant to a sitting position before she hurried over to Ewtain and inspected him for injuries. She pulled his hood back, and he looked pale. She rolled him around. She found no wound, but she cast her healing touch spell on him anyway. There was no discernible improvement, and she checked her HUD to see what the spell had accomplished. It turned out that it had done very little; it had only restored five HP. She looked for any notifications and quickly read them. Vanya noted that her body magic skill had gone up two points and was now at level four. The only spell that she had in that field of magic was neutralize poison, and then she realized that Ewtain was likely poisoned. She admonished herself for not thinking of it initially, but she hadn’t seen a dart sticking out of him. She looked at his status bars in the party window of her interface, and there was indeed a poison debuff on him.

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Vanya began casting the neutralize poison spell. She had no entry point, so there was no spot on his body to focus the initial power of the spell. Instead, she targeted his entire body and poured as much mana into the spell as she could. After a minute of casting, she had run out of what little mana had replenished since casting it on Taloc, but still she maintained the spell. She could now sense that the poison had entered his body from his side, just above his hip. She began to feel light-headed and decided that it would be better for her to pause and regain some mana points rather than risk overtaxing herself and ending up in a state similar to what Vultressant had experienced. She stopped the spell and said in a weary voice, “Hey Vult, go and get the essences. I’m out of mana, and I need to tend to Ewt.”

Vultressant just nodded and began the slow process of extracting the essence of the Orc lying against a large stone brazier in the middle of the room. She watched him as she recovered. She could sense his progress even though she couldn’t actually see the spirit of the Orc. What she could feel was a slowly diminishing force within the Orc as well as a steadily increasing one in Vultressant’s cupped hands. There was also a hint of a feeling of a tether between the two; she somehow knew that if it were to sever, the essence would be lost. It was possible to make a second attempt if the extraction failed as long as there was no break in the essence. Holding onto it was like trying to hold the insides of an oyster with two fingers; those things were slippery and were even hard to get on a fork. If you lost your grip on the essence, then it could snap back to the host body—annoying but allowing for a possible second try.

Vultressant finished the extraction, and he left to go in search of another corpse. Vanya waited another minute for mana, all the while keeping an eye on Ewtain for a change in his condition. He was very pale, and his breathing was raspy, but he didn’t look to be in immediate danger.

When she had sufficient points to cast a focused neutralize poison spell, she began casting, and this time she tried to center the spell on Ewtain’s side, which she believed to be the injection site. When she was nearly out of mana again, Ewtain started to regain some color in his face, and his breathing deepened and became more regular. Vanya stopped her spell just before she ran out of mana, and she sat down, exhausted from the effort. A minute or two later, Ewtain opened one eye and stared at her. “I take it we won,” he asked, a small smile on his face.

Vanya sighed with relief. “Glad to have you back.”

“Good to be back. I’m still poisoned and have a pretty bad Dex debuff that will last until all the poison is out of me. It looks to me like the poison isn’t meant to kill, just to incapacitate.”

“Let me get some power back, and I’ll fix you up then.”

“Power?” Ewtain asked, his smile broadening and his other eye opening.

Vanya rolled her eyes at him. “I’m clearly tired... Sorry, when I get back some mana points,” she said, emphasizing the last two words. She really was exhausted.

Ewtain laughed. “No worries. I just don’t normally see you break character in a game.”

Vanya shrugged, and then her expression grew serious. “At home, I would log on and play for a couple of hours a night to escape for a while, you know?” Ewtain nodded, and she continued. “I liked to stay in character, which involved using the terms of the current game.” She paused and looked away. When she continued, she felt herself tearing up. “This isn’t a game. We can’t turn it off. I used games as a distraction and to socialize, but here, I have to crap outside. And while that is far less degrading than having a nurse change my diaper, it’s not great.”

“Hmm, it’s true; crapping outside is no fun, but you can walk and no diapers. Wait, are there diapers?” He acted like he was trying to get a look at her ass.

“No, no, no.” Vanya waved a hand at him. “That was just when I was in the hospital rehabbing. I can hold it now, and I can transfer to a toilet on my own. Well, not having to do that is pretty great, but, well, this whole thing is stressful. I’m not a fan of stress.”

Ewtain smiled broadly. “Stress sucks. Maybe we find a town with running water and toilets.”

Vanya looked at him skeptically. “That doesn’t seem to fit the theme of this world.”

“We’ve seen a backwards village and an old temple. Those things exist in our world.”

“I mean, our gear fits a typical fantasy setting.”

Ewtain accessed his HUD and projected a notification that read, Congratulations! Your dodge skill has increased and is now level 7. “Does that look like the tech of a fantasy world?”

“That’s just part of the game,” Vanya protested. She blushed after realizing that she had just contradicted her earlier words.

Ewtain shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Our bodies have changed.” He looked over at Maroftis and then at Vanya’s legs for emphasis. “The tech might just be for us as part of the game, or it could be that everyone here has this in one form or another. We know that the frog men had an interface like ours, but the monsters of the world might not have a HUD. We need to get to Ildul and see if we can get some proper information.”

Vanya had little hope in that, but she nodded anyway. “Let me try to fix your poison issue.” She worked on him as the others looted anything of apparent value from the monsters. Vultressant came back several minutes later, looking a bit dejected. “What’s wrong?”

“I only succeeded twice on the essences, and they were of lower quality. That caster had no essence at all. He did have this ring, though.” Vultressant showed her his left hand, where he now wore a ring with a green stone on his pinkie finger.

Vanya was incredulous. “And you just put it on? What if the thing were magic and cursed?”

Vultressant shrugged. “If it were cursed, why would the caster be wearing the thing?”

“Maybe the ring made him do these terrible things,” Ewtain offered.

Vultressant looked at Ewtain. “It was a hideous Goblin. I don’t think that the ring was what was making him evil.”

“That’s just racist,” Ewtain said, and Vultressant laughed. “Why didn’t it have the essence thing?”

Vultressant considered. “It might have been a player like us.”

“Wouldn’t it be respawned somewhere else, then?” Vanya asked.

Shrugging, Vultressant replied. “Maybe, I’m not sure. Perhaps we respawn naked, and our bodies remain. Option two, maybe that was its last life.”