---------LEGEND---------
PLAYER/USERNAME
Grace/Lasair
Xia/Genevieve
-------------------------------
“Genevieve! No!" Grace exclaimed in horror seeing her playmate explode into many colored bubbles. She was wrong, she thought that after some difficulty they would have been able to prevail over their enemy and instead they were unable to reduce its life points to even 95% of the total before one of them was defeated in what was practically a one shot kill.
Rock Manifestation turned to Grace after its lethal attack, she remained motionless, stunned by the power of that beam that it had fired from its mouth and aware that she didn't have even the remotest hope of being able to win. Before she vanished, Genevieve had told her to avenge her, but by now she knew her well enough to know that she was just making a dramatic scene.
In any case, seeing how the situation had evolved and how quickly it did had taken away her desire to even try; Grace lowered her sword and closed her eyes with a deep sigh, Genevieve hadn't told her that her desire to become a LotA champion was an empty mirage just to make her happy, the truth is that she would never become a champion... Grace was born to lose, and she would continue to lose until the end of her days.
[Player 'AlexFae' sent you a request to join your party. Do you accept? Y/N]
...Y?
[Player 'AlexFae' has joined the party.]
Two arrows whizzed through the air coming like two bullets from Grace's left and sticking one in the neck and the other in a shoulder of Rock Manifestation; fast as a shadow, a thin and agile figure jumped into the arena. The miniboss howled at its new opponent, forgetting that she still was in front of it, focusing solely on the ashen-skinned elvreth with wavy pink hair who had appeared out of nowhere.
The miniboss opened its jaws, light began to erupt from between its sharp teeth, “watch out! It's about to use a beam attack!”
The beam that killed Genevieve almost instantly was avoided by the new player with what seemed to Grace to be absolute ease: the new player darted forward, throwing herself under the beam that was fired towards her and unsheathing a pair of daggers. When Rock Manifestation closed its mouth AlexFae was already on it and struck it with both of her weapons in rapid succession.
[Genevieve: What's going on? Who's AlexFae?]
The situation had made Grace forget that Genevieve had received the same notification as her when she added AlexFae to the party and the fact that she wasn't there meant that she had no idea about the current situation. Grace opened the chatroom and wrote a message with her mind.
[Lasair: I have no idea, she appeared out of nowhere and is now fighting the miniboss. I don't think she wants to steal our kill since she asked to join our party.]
[Genevieve: also because it is difficult to steal something from us that we are not in a position to take.]
Ouch.
Grace could hear the sarcasm through the letters, however, she didn't feel like she was trying to belittle her or make fun of her for her rash choice.
[Genevieve: how's it going? What level is she?]
Grace looked over the heads of the miniboss and her challenger.
[Rock Manifestation]
[Level 12 - HP: 88%]
[AlexFae]
[Level 15 - HP: 97%]
[Lasair: she has the situation under control… and she's almost four times our level]
[Genevieve: I'm getting back.]
[Lasair: hurry, I don't think Rock Manifestation will last that long]
AlexFae had to be a monster to be able to fight like that, the way she seemed to instantly predict every special move or attack pattern of the miniboss left only two options: either AlexFae was the second account of a much stronger player or she had fought that miniboss until she learned every most intimate secret. It was after that reflection that Grace realized something about her savior.
“Could she be…” Grace muttered to herself.
Pink hair, yes. Bow, yes. Two daggers, yes. Was this a PinkieFae smurf account? What were the chances of randomly encountering the Canadian LotA champion's smurf account during the fight against one of the weakest miniboss in the entire game? Few, very few, and even more... who would make a smurf of their main account and make it aesthetically similar and with a name that could have been easily traced back to the original account? It didn't make sense.
An avid fan, perhaps?
The duel between woman and monster appeared to be a titanic clash to Grace's eyes, both opponents had more or less the same ability to harm each other and this was seen in the rapid and lethal exchange of blows between paws, fangs and the silvery glitter of two short blades. Rock Manifestation hit harder, but this strength was countered by AlexFae's greater mobility, which managed to limit the attempts to kill her if not directly completely elude them.
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After about two minutes of fighting it was clear who would win given that the health of one of the two contenders was at 70% when that of the other was already below 40%, in the following minute, the duel ended with the winner being declared.
[Rock Manifestation]
[Level 12 - HP: 0%]
[AlexFae]
[Level 15 - HP: 54%]
[Loot collected]
The miniboss exploded in many colored bubbles while AlexFae placed her pair of blades in their respective sheaths in a very theatrical manner; Grace had seen some of PinkieFae's matches and so it became even more evident how this player was somehow imitating the personality and fighting style of the original champion.
“Uh, th-thanks for the help,” Grace stammered, bowing her head slightly. She knew that even modern NexNetVR technology didn't allow her to show embarrassment, but she could still imagine her cheeks turning red like fire on her real face.
“You're welcome,” she replied, sighing, “did you get the rare item you and your friend came here for?”
Grace checked the notification and shook her head, after all the system can make you kill the same monster up to one hundred times before getting the desired rare item, which, between the time it takes to fight the monster, wait for it to respawn and hope that no one steals the kill, required at least weeks spent repeating the same operation over and over again.
Why waste all this time when you can spend $50 into loot boxes and get even more of what you're looking for in under ten minutes? And let's not forget the dopamine rush received opening every loot box…
“Unfortunate, but not unexpected,” AlexFae shrugged, her ears twitched and she turned her head away from Grace to look in the direction from where Genevieve was coming. Grace's playmate jumped into the arena now that it was free of the hemisphere that prevented players inside the area from exiting, “I handled the situation for you.”
“Yes, I realized it when I got the notification that you were added to our party followed by the fact that Lasair wasn't reappearing in town,” Genevieve replied, who as usual seemed as suspicious of strangers as she had been of Grace in the beginning. “Thank you for your intervention, this miniboss is still too much for us.”
“Are you a fan of PinkieFae?” Grace asked putting her sword back in its sheath, “I watched some of her matches.”
“PinkieFae?” Genevieve's tone sounded like someone who had just fallen from the clouds.
AlexFae gave them a bright smile, “do you know her too??” She clenched her fists, raising them above her breasts and started wagging her tail, “she's a fantastic player! I never miss a single one of her streams!”
“Actually, I don't…”
Grace stopped Genevieve before she could finish speaking, yes, it was rude and she would have apologized to her for as long as it took after, but at that moment they had the opportunity to expand their party with a third high class member with greater familiarity with the game mechanics, “o-of course! Who doesn't know the Canadian LotA champion?? Did you see her team's last match against the American champions?”
AlexFae nodded vigorously, “live, and I’ve also donated!”
[Genevieve: I'm not sure what the point of all this is.]
[Lasair: She's much more powerful than us and knows the game better than the two of us put together. I think we can speed up the progress if we can convince her to stay with us.]
Genevieve nodded in agreement and crossed the arms under her chest, letting Grace talk “I saw that match too, in my opinion they only lost due to some unforeseeable unfortunate events.”
“I agree, they were disadvantaged by the type of arena,” AlexFae raised a hand to her chin and became thoughtful, her pink-furred ears folded behind her head.
“I can't wait for the rematch,” Grace smiled slightly, “listen, s-s-sorry, maybe I shouldn't since... there's this great disparity between us, but...” she swallowed, worried to speak up and ask, “would you like to stay in our party? We would like to improve our level quickly to play at a competitive level.”
“It can't be done,” AlexFae replied quickly but without any grumpy or annoyed tone in her voice, “I'm sorry.”
"Why?" Genevieve interjected.
“It's not a question of the difference in levels or that I don't want to mix with newbies,” AlexFae clarified, “it's that part of my salary comes from selling rare items and experience scrolls. I can't afford to have protegees under my wing because otherwise I would lose an important part of my income."
“Oh…” Grace lowered her head, apparently it had gone badly for her.
“But I can add you to my friends list and we can organize a lesson on how to progress quickly in the game without having to invest a fortune!” AlexFae proclaimed loudly and in an encouraging tone, pounding her right fist into the open palm of her left hand.
“That would be amazing!” Genevieve said, “LotA tutorials suck, we need someone with some practical experience to give us the right informations,” she waved a hand slowly in front of her face, “for the rest, Lasair and I can make do.”
Grace could understand Genevieve's lack of trust towards strangers, but it seemed to her that Genevieve was forgetting that at the tournaments, teams have to be made up of four elements, and two optional players as reserves.
“I'm glad you understood my position,” AlexFae said with a hint of a smile, apparently it was confirmed that the trio that had formed was dead in the bud, “then I'll add you to my friends and as soon as possible I'll contact you for an explanation practice how to level up quickly. I'll already give you the first piece of advice: if you don't want to sell them, use the experience scrolls when you find them, just keeping them in your inventory doesn't help you either in progression or in adding some money to your bank account."
[Player 'AlexFae' has left the party.]
[Player 'AlexFae' sent you a friend request. Do you accept? Y/N]
Y!
[The player 'AlexFae' has been added to your friends.]
“All done,” AlexFae nodded to herself, “I'm moving on to the next miniboss, good continuation.”
“Th-thank you again for your assistance!” Grace said quickly waving a hand as a farewell, Genevieve waved instead of her classic silent nod.
AlexFae set off at a light jog, leaving them behind in the empty arena, now that there was no miniboss, it seemed like the perfect place for a picnic, if only technology allowed people to eat in virtual reality.
"I'd say it's better if we also continue with some quests before logging out, this evening we didn't manage to do almost anything", Genevieve grumbled annoyed, "shall we do a repeatable quest?"
“The ones where we have to kill fifty monsters of a certain type in exchange for a very low-grade loot box? But… but… they're boring!”
Genevieve chuckled, “but they give us some Tarant, a few items of common rarity, and a small amount of EXP to add to that gained from killing the fifty monsters, so we use the experience scrolls we have and then move on. If they add one or two more levels we will speed up the process.”
“Um… okay…” Grace murmured, unconvinced, the repeatable quests may have had their usefulness, but without a doubt they were terribly boring. When Genevieve set off, she set off too, alongside her and starting to discuss new strategies and how to deal with the next situations within the game; they never talked much about themselves outside of the game and about who they were and that was fine with Grace, especially because her playing partner gave her a growing sense of familiarity that she couldn't describe and it aroused in her the fear that the real Grace wouldn't have stood the comparison with the gentle and caring Lasair.