Chapter 12 - Impact

Satisfied with her ability’s progress, Fey put the thornweed away and surveyed her surroundings. …So where are the treants? According to her game map, Fey was in the correct location, but she saw nothing but trees. She saw no movement but the natural rustling of leaves.

After several (long) minutes of staring, Fey (finally) realized that some of the ‘trees’ she saw must be treants. Unlike the twiggys, which moved around and had eyes, inactive treants were fairly indistinguishable from true trees. “Great,” she muttered, “Now what?” Fey had the feeling that if she randomly started hitting things and damaged real trees, someone (or something) would show up and make her regret it. What had Tallen said about treants? Something about being man-sized. Fey looked up toward the treetops. All of the trees were a good deal taller than her, but some were merely large, while others were truly enormous. Fey approached one of the smaller trees. Well, if you only consider the trunk up to the first fork, I suppose you could call it “man-sized.”

Fey told Magic and Amethyst to go hide, as she doubted that their abilities would be useful against a monster armoured in thick bark. Hoping she had guessed correctly, she attacked the tree with one of her more powerful kicks, turning sideways to the tree and hitting heel first. The impact with the solidly rooted tree reverberated up her leg, making her glad that she was wearing boots.

For a moment, nothing happened. Fey cringed and imagined an irate elven ranger popping up out of nowhere to punish her for damaging the forest. She was actually relieved when instead, the treant woke up, opening scary yellow eyes, uprooting itself from the ground, and beginning to chase her.

Fey easily dodged the treant’s attacks. While faster than its smaller (and stumpier) cousin, the twiggy, the treant’s speed was nothing to be impressed about. Setting her feet sideways to the treant, Fey performed her most powerful kick, spinning so that her back was to the monster and kicking out like a horse. Unfortunately, Fey did not have enough mass to back up the momentum behind the kick, so when her foot collided with the treant, she was the one that moved, hopping a little on her supporting foot (*law of conservation of momentum*). Fey was not exactly surprised at this turn of events, as nearly everyone Arwyn sparred against in tae kwon do class weighed more than she did (the exceptions being children and people more than six inches shorter than her), so she kept her balance easily. *Mental grumble* Not for the first time, Fey wished she weighed more.

Whazzat? Fey tried to read the skill description while avoiding being squashed by the treant.

Awesome. Fey had intended to become a sword fighter in Fantasia, but during combat, her training asserted itself, causing her kicking skills to quickly outstrip her (non-existent) sword skills. She kicked the treant again, remembering to practice using her weaker left leg. The monster was large and slow enough that Fey could consider it a stationary target, so she performed several fancy kicks for fun, jumping into the air and/or spinning 360 degrees before kicking to add extra force. She also added Roundhouse Kick – similar to Snap Kick, except that the foot was angled to kick more horizontally than vertically – to her skills to round out the basic tae kwon do kicks she knew. While the treant did not appear noticeably damaged, Fey was now breathing heavily and wanted to sit down. Any kicks that required both feet leaving the ground at the same time required a great deal more energy than normal kicks, and Fey had approximately 60 seconds worth of energy when it came to high-intensity exertion (this was an issue because during tae kwon do, sparring sessions lasted 90 seconds). She stopped attacking and rested while dodging the treant’s slow movements.

It occurred to Fey that she now had an ability capable of allowing her sword to penetrate her opponent’s tough bark. She drew her blades and activated Mana Edge. Stepping in close to the treant, Fey executed a one-two slash with sword and dagger, then jumped back to evaluate the effect. Two inch-deep gashes were visible on the treant, one above the other. Fey sighed; she had been aiming to hit the same spot twice. Let’s try this again. She sprang forward and retreated. There were now four cuts. This is going to be a long day.

By the time Fey ran out of mana, the treant sported a hand-sized area pitted with numerous slashes, and sap was flowing from the wound. Fey was quite tired but satisfied with her progress. Since the treant now had an open wound, Fey thought that Magic’s ability would now work on it. “Magic, cast Spore,” she called out. She heard a squeak from somewhere above her head, and a cloud of spores drifted down.

“…Magic, cast Spore until something happens!”

More clouds of spores descended.

The treant was now as slow as a twiggy. “Good job, Magic!” Fey heard a squeak in reply. She sheathed her weapons and went back to kicking the treant while her mana regenerated. Unlike in real life, Fey really wanted her opponent to die, so her kicks were at full strength (which made her very tired). She aimed directly at the wounded area, which seemed to hurt the treant, but also caused her boots to get covered in sticky sap. Fey grimaced as dirt began to accumulate on her sticky boots, but it did not affect her performance and she continued attacking.

After fifteen minutes that included another round of Mana Edge and still more kicking, the treant finally went down. All of its leaves shrivelled and fell off, and it toppled to the ground, almost squashing Fey in the process.

Fey collapsed to the ground as well, leaning against a (real) tree and trying to catch her breath. Fifteen minutes was far too long to be fighting, and she had only a single log to show for it.

Magic and Amethyst descended from the tree to inspect their owner, who, apart from the heaving of her chest from panting, appeared quite dead. As Fey’s breathing slowed, her resemblance to a dead body increased.

Amethyst landed on Fey’s head and squeaked concernedly. Leaving her head propped against the tree (*too tired to hold head up*), Fey lazily took the slime down and placed her on the ground. Magic climbed up one bent leg and viewed Fey from his vantage point on her knee. Fey patted him absently and resumed her corpse imitation.

After a few minutes, Fey revived (*undead*) and heaved herself off the ground. She would have liked nothing more than to go find some activity that involved little or no movement, but she had treants to kill. It had not escaped her notice that she had not gained a single level since logging in. This was in part due to the fact that she was hitting the steep part of Fantasia’s experience curve, and in part due to the fact that she had spent quite a bit of time at Kallara’s, making potions rather than fighting. Determined, she sent her pets back up to shelter, found another (relatively) short tree, and kicked it.

After the defeat of her third treant, Fey levelled up.

Stamina was an interesting stat in Fantasia. It could go up or down based on a player’s activity, and could not be changed except through playing. The base level at 100 gave a player the same kind of stamina as a normal, reasonably fit person. 150 stamina was at the level of the world’s top athletes. Anything above 150 gave a player superhuman endurance above a real body’s physical capacity for storing energy.

In addition to the level and stamina increases, Fey’s various kicking skills were between levels 4 and 6, the Kicking skill was at level 2, Magic had caught up to Amethyst’s level 10 (*small bonus in intelligence*), and Mana Blade had reached level 3. All in all, Fey felt that she had made good progress, even if she felt like all her muscles were crying and begging to not have to work anymore. She sent Amethyst off to collect fallen coins and began wrestling her hard-earned logs into a magical pack. Shrinking an item’s volume by a tenth meant that the pack reduced each of its dimensions by a little more than half (the cubic root of 10, to be exact), so the wood jutted out of the top of the backpack by quite a bit. She placed the packs into the arrangement described earlier (see Chapter 11 if you don’t remember) and, the logs fit quite nicely. She had just finished putting her logs away when the sound of breaking branches made her look up.

***

Leandriel was having fun. As he gained confidence in his flying abilities, he began to attempt more skilled maneuvers, such as climbing, diving, and spinning sharply in the air. He wobbled a few times during the exercises, but managed to regain his balance with an exhilarated grin.

The mistake he could not recover from was when he swooped down too close to the treetops. The air currents flowed differently as they hit the canopy, causing him to lose balance and clip his wings against the trees before being able to recover. Not wanting to damage the delicate bones of his new limbs, Leandriel folded them close to his body and let himself fall, trusting in his high defence and vitality to prevent the fall from becoming fatal.

Leandriel landed with a hard impact. His first thought was that he had landed on a log rather than flat ground. This impression was reinforced when several treants, disturbed by his noisy plummet, attacked simultaneously. He gingerly picked himself off the ground. When it appeared that he had no serious injuries, Leandriel drew his sword.

“Circle Slash!”

As he swung his sword, an expanding ring of holy light passed cleanly through all six attacking treants. Cut in half, the monsters toppled to the ground (*dead*). After the noise of falling trees had settled, Leandriel was able to hear the sound of rapid, shallow breathing. He turned, and felt something akin to panic when he realized that the ‘log’ he had landed on was actually an elven woman.

***

Fey was fairly sure that at least one of her ribs was broken. She had never experienced broken ribs before, but thought that the sharp pain she felt every time she inhaled was a good indicator of broken ribs. She had seen a large, indistinct shape just a moment before being crushed under its weight. She had no idea who or what it was until a young man’s face appeared in her field of vision.

“Are you all right?” The man asked urgently.

“I think… my ribs… are broken,” Fey managed to whisper. The man muttered angrily at himself and fumbled in his belt pouch. When he came up with a healing potion, Fey saw the silver sparkles in the red liquid that indicated it was a medium healing potion. A step higher than a basic healing potion (which was a step up from a minor healing potion), it was capable of healing up to 500 health points. As Fey only had 172 health, using a medium health potion would be a waste, and she opened her mouth to tell him so. The man took the opportunity to pour the liquid into her mouth. Too late now. She swallowed, and sighed in relief as the potion went to work and the pain faded.

“Are you okay now?” the man asked anxiously.

Fey took a deep breath to restore her mental faculties (if you enjoyed the short, understandable sentences of the last two paragraphs, too bad; that’s not how we roll). “You didn’t have to use a medium healing potion, you know; I only have 172 health.”

Leandriel was so startled at the elf’s first words that he answered honestly, “That’s the smallest healing potion I have.”

Fey finally noticed the man’s (huge) wings, visible above his shoulders. “Are you an angel?” she asked, then smiled at herself because it sounded like what someone delirious or dying would ask of her nurse. The angel nodded. Fey knew that the celestial race could not become angels until level 100, which explained why he would not have any lesser healing potions. This also told her that she was talking to an NPC, as there was no possible way for a player to have reached level 100 in the short time since Fantasia had been released.

Deciding that she had spent enough time lying on the ground, Fey sat up. The angel hurried to assist her. Fey took his hand out of politeness, but avoided putting any weight on it as she stood up, pushing straight up with her legs (standing up from sitting on the ground was one of the few things Fey could do gracefully). Upright, Fey noticed that her braid was off-centre. Grimacing, she pulled out the tie and began combing the braid out.

As the elf finger-combed her hair, she stepped into a patch of direct sunlight from the opening in the canopy created by his fall. Leandriel could not help but notice that her hair was a rich, deep purple rather than black. He shook the irrelevant thought from his head and began his apologies. “I really cannot begin to apologize enough for crashing into you like that.”

Fey was not mad at the angel, who clearly had not intended to crash into her, so she listened absently to his apology while retying her hair (*prioritize*). Now that her hair was free, she considered her options. Arwyn generally wore her hair loose, but as it fell nearly to her waist (she was lazy about getting it cut), wearing it unbound was not a practical choice for running around and fighting monsters. Hmm, I’m an elf. Inspired, Fey tied it in a simplified version of the typical elven hairstyle, where she tied the sides back to keep it out of her face, but left the rest loose (watch the Lord of the Rings if you don’t understand).

Leandriel continued his apology with an explanation. “I only recently earned my wings and am still mastering flying, so when I came too close to the canopy, I lost control and fell.”

Fey nodded in understanding. Huh. I never considered the difficulties of learning to fly. Hair dealt with, Fey took a few seconds to examine her drop-in visitor (couldn’t resist the pun, hahaha). He looked every inch the stereotypical warrior angel, tall, with dark hair, blue eyes, and a pair of (huge) wings that were blindingly white in direct sunlight. He was dressed in a set of silvery armour engraved in runes, which she guessed were for magical protection. At his waist was a longsword in scabbard, and she could see a large jewel in the pommel that glowed white with holy element.

Sensing that the angel would continue apologizing for at least another five minutes if she did not intervene, Fey hurried to let him off the hook. “It’s fine. This sort of thing happens all the time.”

Leandriel could not believe his ears. What kind of misfortune could befall this thin, delicate-looking elf “all the time”? He had vague thoughts of an abusive relationship, but she somehow seemed too confident to be a victim.

Seeing the angel’s incredulous expression, Fey hurried to explain (incoherently). “I don’t mean I get broken ribs all the time, but sometimes I get hit during… training.” Fey did not know if NPCs would know what tae kwon do was, but shrugged and put it into her explanation (“training” just sounds very shady in this context). “I take tae kwon do class, and sometimes people make mistakes. Bruises happen.” Fey shrugged. By “people,” she really meant “overaggressive, clumsy boys” (she had never had a female step hard enough on her foot to leave a massive bruise or kick her directly in the stomach during sparring). Out of all the girls Leandriel could have crashed into, Fey was one of the least likely to start crying or having hysterics. She actually preferred her collision with the angel rather than a real-life incident; with a simple potion, all her pain was gone in an instant, while in real life, she would be suffering for weeks while her bruises healed.

Leandriel’s incredulous look faded with understanding, but his guilt remained. “But…”

“It’s fine,” Fey insisted. Along with her experience in dealing with collecting painful, non-serious injuries, she had gained ample experience in dealing with guilt-ridden boys. Normally, Arwyn would spend a few minutes exaggerating the pain she felt in order to make the boy feel extra guilty (for being so overaggressive and clumsy), but in this case, Fey felt no animosity towards him. Plus, he had wasted a medium healing potion on her, so she had no pain to exaggerate.

In her experience, the best way to lay the guilt to rest would be to change the subject. Looking around, Fey saw the fallen treants. “Do you mind if I take these?” she asked, gesturing.

“Of course not,” said the angel, so Fey took her set of magical backpacks and started to load it with logs. She found the wood much easier to handle now that it was sliced neatly in half. She wished that she could slice it neatly in half.

Leandriel followed the elf over to the first fallen treant, and as soon as he figured out what she was doing, immediately began to help her pack up the logs.

Fey tried not to feel resentful at the fact that the angel could easily handle the weight of a log with one hand. It’s not his fault I don’t have any muscles in my arms (is this statement hyperbole or understatement?). At his curious look, Fey explained, “I’m collecting wood for the tavern-keeper.”

“Ah.” Leandriel nodded in understanding. Working together, the pair quickly collected all the logs. The elf ended up holding the bag open while Leandriel placed the logs in. At first, he was confused at seeing all the layers of leather, but quickly figured out what the elf had done and was impressed with her creativity. Leandriel went from feeling guilty for crashing into the elf to confused at her lack of reaction – he had expected either hysterics or anger – to becoming fascinated at meeting such an unusual person.

After they had collected all the wood, Leandriel introduced himself. “My name is Leandriel.” He offered a hand.

Fey shook his hand readily. “I’m Fey.”