---------LEGEND---------
PLAYER/USERNAME
Grace/Lasair
Xia/Genevieve
-------------------------------
After an hour of moving her legs and practicing so many straight down head cuts that she lost count, Lasair finally told Xia that her basic lesson was over and that she was ready for the practical test; the search area had been marked on a map as a large golden circle and in some points there were objects on the ground or signals with which they had to interact to continue the quest, narrowing the search area after each clue examined.
"Here we are. Is your spell ready?” Lasair asked Xia, to whom she exchanged a look and to which she responded with a nod, “very well, then, p-please, go touch the last track and if it works as I imagine, the monsters will suddenly appear and converge towards you."
“At that point you will attack first those who have escaped the effect of the spell I will cast. Ready your sword,” Xia said, unsheathing her sword and walking past some bushes to reach the bright spot the game was telling her to investigate.
She lowered herself, brushing away some leaves with her free hand to study the ground where there was only some chewed food that Xia couldn't even pick up or move, the golden light vanished and she heard the liquid noise of the slimas approaching in quick jumps towards her
“Lasair! Now!" Xia exclaimed, looking in the direction where there were multiple slimas concentrated in the same place: there were five in total, two were close enough to be within the area of action of her spell. Xia moved her free hand as if she was playing music, drawing notes in the air, a silver circle appeared in her field of view, the circle allowed her to position the spell area with her mind. Xia positioned it 2/3 in front of the two slimas she had decided to target and 1/3 behind them, then exclaimed the activation words, “[Spider's Web]!”.
[Spider's Web] was the first spell unlocked for the Attitude Xia had chosen, it was a spell dedicated to crowd control that covered the ground with a substance similar to a spider's web, capable of slowing down - or even blocking in the case of very weak monsters - any creature trying to cross it. The area affected by the spell consisted of a 10 foot diameter circle with a duration of 3 seconds with a subsequent 8 seconds cooldown before it could be used again. Too short? If you asked a player of any MOBA on the market they would answer that these are more than enough seconds to make a difference.
The slimas were weak enough to get stuck in [Spider's Web], good. Behind Xia, Lasair had grabbed the sword with both hands and had rushed towards one of the slimas who had escaped Xia's spell simply by being somewhere else; she had a concentrated expression, her blonde hair swayed behind her like a sea of wheat moved by the wind. Closing the distance with the slima she had chosen as a target, she executed three cuts in rapid succession.
[Minor Slima (Inferior)]
[Level 1 – HP: 63%]
A good start, that's how it's done!
Xia still had a few thousandths of a second before [Spider's Web] finished its effect and vanished, so she followed the plan they had decided together and approached the other two slimas, the ones who had not been involved in either her spell or Lasair's assaults. “Come on, you stupid jelly balls, try to hit me!” Xia exclaimed resolutely.
"Uh... I don't... I don't think they understand what you're telling them..." Lasair pointed out to Xia as she easily dodged the slima's headbutt by taking a short step to the left before landing two more precise and fast strikes on it, causing its HP to quickly drop to 39%. Xia was starting to feel a little jealous considering how long it had taken her to achieve the same result in her solo fight, losing a lot of HP among other things.
“An attempt to bring their aggro on me was legitimate!”
[Genevieve]
[Level 1 – HP: 45%]
Xia huffed in annoyance - since she couldn't feel any form of pain - when a slima headbutted her and refocused on the fight. She tried to attract as many slimas as possible to her, dedicating herself to defense and parry even when the lesson in hand-to-hand combat had given her the false belief that she was seeing openings and perfect moments to strike everywhere; Lasair was dispatching slime after slime with ease, taking practically neglegible amounts of damage, proving to Xia that when she said she had some level of swordplay she wasn't just trying to impress her.
…
[Minor Slima (Inferior)]
[Level 1 – HP: 0%]
[Genevieve]
[Level 1 – HP: 41%]
[Lasair]
[Level 1 – HP: 94%]
"Have we won?" Lasair asked herself after her sword had cut and made the last slima explode into many beautiful colored bubbles, an unjustified disbelief considering that in the time she had taken her to finish the fight Xia realized that Lasair was a quite capable swordswoman, one that really had no need to have a bait around, “we have won!” Lasair exclaimed with greater conviction.
"Yeah..." Xia whispered, not exactly happy or satisfied with her contribution, Xia found herself mentally wondering if Lasair had insisted on doing the quest together just because with the lagging problems she was having when they met she started having pity on her. There was one thing that Xia didn't understand, more important than those ruminations of hers, "did the system tell you that the quest was completed? It didn't do it to me."
“Huh?” Lasair looked at her with her eyelashes fluttering, the enthusiasm of the victory vanished instantly, "no... it didn't do it to me either."
Their perplexity was quickly dispelled by the appearance of a slima whose color and appearance resembled those they had already killed, but this one, instead of being the size of a basketball, was the size of a large dog like a saint bernard or a great dane. Its big eyes stared at them insistently even though Xia couldn't tell if it was angry or anything since it had no real face, was it enraged? Maybe the slimas they killed were its relatives…
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
[Minor Slima (Greater)]
[Level 3 – HP: 100%]
“Genevieve! Watch out!” Lasair exclaimed.
Xia was looking at it, yet that slima still managed to surprise her: it made a lightning leap opening its enormous mouth before closing it between her neck and shoulder. There was no pain, but that didn't stop Xia's natural instincts from making her think she was about to be mauled to death… in other words, panic took the place of the kendo lesson Lasair had taught her.
“Eeeeekk!!!” Xia screamed, flailing and trying to get the big gelatinous monster off of her.
[Genevieve]
[Level 1 – HP: 28%]
Xia's heart started beating wildly. In her mind, if she hadn't managed to get rid of that monster that would have been the end for her! “Lasair! Help me!"
"Hold on!"
“How can I resist a monster that is biting me???” Xia replied angrily, it's strange how fear and stress sometimes can lead to aggressive reactions even towards those who are trying to help you.
[Genevieve]
[Level 1 – HP: 13%]
“LASAIR! HELP! NOW!” She shrieked.
“[Iron Aura]!” Laisar exclaimed as she finished reciting the incantation. The big slima narrowed its eyes and opened its mouth, letting Xia go when a powerful sword blow was struck by the Shinepeak's expert hands. Behind it stood Xia's savior, shrouded from head to toe in a dim silver light.
[Minor Slima (Greater)]
[Level 3 – HP: 87%]
The monster's aggro was suddenly turned towards Lasair, proof that its AI algorithm was not that developed since otherwise it would have drawn the logical conclusion that continuing to attack Xia, with the little HP she had left, was the best strategy. The first rule in war is to hit the weak links first after all.
Unlike its little brothers, this slima was decidedly faster and its attacks were much more violent, Xia's teammate was forced to defend herself much more actively and avoiding hitting unless absolutely certain she would be able to inflict decisive damage. “We have to take it on both sides!” Xia said after managing to calm her nerves, Lasair's protective spell didn't last much longer than her [Spider's Web] and even though she seemed to have things under control, Xia refused to stand back and win just because another person had almost literally put her on their back and carried her through adversity. The slima was completely ignoring her, as if it had decided that what Xia was doing wasn't even worth paying attention to, on the other hand all she could do was run away or attack and risk a deadly counter-attack since her spell would have also involved Lasair and her HP were really low.
...Unless…
Xia took a few steps back to get away from an immediate retaliation from the slima and began to move her left hand to draw the magical symbols of the spell in the air, it only took a few seconds, at the end of which she exclaimed "[Spider's Web]!".
At first Lasair didn't understand what Xia had done since her spell would have hindered all three of them equally, but when the sticky substance appeared on the ground trapping only Xia and the slime, she understood what Xia had done, nothing special in truth: she had positioned the epicenter of her spell so that the slima and her would be involved, but leaving Lasair just one step outside of it, free to attack.
“Lasair! Now!" Xia shouted already anticipating the victory.
“I obey with pleasure!” Lasair abandoned all attention to her own defense and focused on a fast and precise maneuver, four lightning attacks pierced the large slima in various points.
[Minor Slima (Greater)]
[Level 3 – HP: 0%]
[Primary mission updated. Return to Lavyella's Guard Barracks to report the results of your research.]
[Loot collected]
"We won!" Lasair exclaimed before adding hastily and in a lower voice, “for real this time.”
"Yup!" Xia smiled, hoping that the tone would make known what her archaic NexNet didn't allow to manifest visually, "it also dropped something, look..." she took a quick look, the names of the various objects and their quantity appeared in their inventories. There were [Mana Shards] useful to restore at least part of her health and magic points and a [Minor Knowledge Scroll], perfect for boosting level growth. "Maybe it's better if we store the [Knowledge Scrolls] and try to push up our game the non-transactional way?"
That's one of the tricks used in F2P games to try to convince players to perform microtransactions: they're shown how quickly they could progress by spending even paltry amounts like $15 for a loot box that guarantees at least one high-rarity item inside and once the first purchase is done it becomes a matter of sunk cost fallacy. Gambling is an addiction, guys, don't do gambling.
Xia was very tempted, not that she ran the risk of losing huge amounts of cash even if she found out using experience-gaining items was advantageous since she didn't have money to spend in the first place, but she knew herself enough to know that she would have grown frustraded when a miraculous progress of 2-3 levels in an afternoon would have suddenly slowed down to one level in three days or more.
"Let's keep them in store for now," Lasair proposed, "in alternative, we could also sell them. There's an online market of players that would pay real money for particular items like the [Knowledge Scrolls]!"
"That's... interesting," Xia said with a tiny smile, her brain was wired in a way to make her act like she was in love whenever faced with the chance of improving her meager bank account, "but maybe selling them is less advantageous than using them to grow faster and get better, and more sellable, loot." She nodded, "yeah, let's keep them until we have a better idea of how far we can push it without losing a potential source of income.
Lasair nodded, “now all we have to do is return to Lavyella and complete the quest!”
“Actually, I should go now,” Xia put her hands on her hips, “thank you for accompanying me on the quest, I certainly couldn't have done it alone.”
“Oh…” Lasair's enthusiasm quickly dissipated, “I understand, and… ok, thanks to you. I... I really enjoyed the company.” She said smiling at Xia.
They remained in silence for a few minutes looking at each other, Xia was standing there waiting for Lasair to propose to her to add her as a friend to play together again, Lasair was probably doing the same with Xia. It was a battle of patience, a war on who would give in first…
“I was wondering if it would be okay if I added you to my friends list,” Xia stated in defeat.
The smile on Lasair's lips became much more spontaneous, “of course! I can't connect every evening, but I will leave a notice in your message box at least one day before I can do it!"
Xia brought up her fairy and entered the contact management options. She searched for Lasair among the users and focused her intentions on the 'invite' box.
[The player 'Lasair' has been added to your friends.]
“It's done,” Xia waved a hand in mid-air to greet her, “see you soon!” she said a few moments before mentally pressing the 'logout' button and exiting the game.
- - -
Xia raised her hands and after unfastening the locks of the NexNet she took it off her head with a sigh. The ceiling above her seemed so… bland, sad, colorless, the sensation she felt made her understand why for some people virtual reality could be as addictive as a drug. Xia's body felt numb as if she had just woken up even though she hadn't closed her eyes for a single moment.
“It went well,” She told to herself, sitting up in bed so she could then get up, put the NexNet away, and turn off the computer.
She had already forgotten that her real legs were incapable of supporting her.