Chapter 15

Fey made it back to the Moonwood as dawn lightened the shadows in the forest. It’s been a full day now, she mused, maybe I should wake up. She was a little startled when she checked the time and saw that it was only 4:00 a.m. in the real world. Fey had started playing Fantasia early in the evening (see Chapter 8 if you don’t remember), so although she had played for a full game day, it was an unreasonably early time to be awake. Haha, they should market this game as a way to turn night owls into early birds. It was not unusual for Arwyn to stay awake well past midnight on weekends and wake up shortly before noon (noon being her firm line between ‘sleeping in’ and ‘slothful’), but Fantasia was rewriting her sleep habits.

Okay, I’ll do a few more things before I get up. First of all, food. Fey was hungry again from running around (terrorizing things). If she had been in her real body, this level of physical activity for such an extended amount of time would have made her collapse and fall asleep a long time ago. Fortunately, her virtual body had much greater stamina regeneration and did not get sleepy (because falling asleep while being asleep would be kind of weird). It did, however, require food proportional to the amount of energy she expended. Her virtual stomach made this very clear as it digested itself to punish her for leaving it empty. Fey headed to the tavern.

Tallen was happy to see Fey, and even happier at seeing her load of freshly-killed miniature boars. They were the perfect size for roasting whole and feeding to a single person as a delicacy. He even paid her 15g for each.

“I’m serving breakfast now,” he said, placing the boars (not including Boris) in the magical preservation box in the kitchen that prevented decay without having to freeze the food (magic can be practical sometimes, you know). “Would you like me to save one for you later?”

“Oh no, thank you,” said Fey. “I can’t eat that much meat in one sitting.” Most of Arwyn’s calories came from carbohydrates (anyone who tries a carb-free diet to lose weight has never met our skinny heroine) and eating too much meat made her feel slightly queasy. “Speaking of breakfast…” Fey continued, giving Tallen a hopeful look.

Tallen chuckled at Fey’s ‘starving waif’ impression. “Of course; go sit yourself down.”

Fey sat next to a window (well, an opening that the tree-tavern had been induced to grow around) and admired the forest sunrise as she waited for her meal. She turned her attention back to the table when a plate was placed in front of her.

Oh. My. God. On the plate was a large waffle covered in chocolate syrup with slices of banana and strawberry. It was the exact thing Arwyn would order if she had gone to a fancy breakfast or dessert joint. “How did you know?” she breathed, reverently admiring the chocolatey, carbohydrate-filled goodness (the author is not sure whether or not this passage counts as food porn, but apologizes if reading it results in cravings for waffles). Tallen just winked and left without answering (either he just guessed, or the game helmet could be used for mind reading). Fey picked up her cutlery and started in on the food. Normally, she would not be able to finish an entire waffle by herself, but she was hungry enough that before long, only slight traces of chocolate syrup were left to indicate that a waffle had ever existed.

Fey felt sluggish after ingesting that much sugar, but eventually managed to get herself moving. Before she left, she asked Tallen for some snacks she could eat on the road and received some dried fruit and jerky (she thought it was beef jerky, but it was actually venison). Tucking the food into her belt pouch, she exited the tavern.

Now that it was morning, Fey supposed that her strength tonic had finished brewing and went to visit Kallara. Walking into the healer’s tree-building, she called out a friendly hello.

Looking up from a pile of herbs she was sorting (after the usual morning slaughter out in the herb garden, we assume), Kallara smiled. “Hello. Your strength tonic is complete. I’ll have it bottled for you in a moment.” The healer pulled two glass bottles out of a drawer and filled them with the contents of the pot Fey (and Blade) had helped to prepare earlier.

“Wow, it’s so pretty.” The strength tonic was a translucent gold, similar in colour to honey, but more like water in viscosity.

“I only make potions of the highest quality,” said Kallara with a wink.

Fey saw that Kallara’s words were not just empty boasting when she examined the tonic:

Fey’s eyes widened. “Wow, Kallara, thanks!” The healer’s skill had more than doubled the value of the basic strength tonic.

“Oh, it was no trouble,” said Kallara modestly. In truth, to get the “perfect brewing” bonus, there was less than 10 seconds and 5ºC of leeway for every single step of the brewing process, from adding each ingredient to heating and cooling down. Kallara rarely bothered to go through such trouble for a relatively small bonus, but had made the effort because she liked Fey.

“By the way, your young man came by looking for you,” the healer added.

“My what?” That is possibly the strangest thing that anyone has ever said to me. I do not have a “young man.”

“Your young man,” the healer repeated, “the one who helped collect the ingredients for the strength tonic?”

The idea of Blade being “her” young man made Fey wince. “Kallara,” she said very seriously, “there is nothing, nor will there ever be, anything going on between me and Blade.”

Kallara had observed Fey and Blade together for long enough to determine that there was no attraction between the two, but continued to tease Fey because she found it amusing. (The author tries to write kindly characters, but they somehow all turn out to be evil.)

“Whyever not?” she asked, feigning confusion. “He’s quite a handsome young man.” Indeed, Blade fit the “tall, dark, and handsome” cliché fairly well (this is only being inserted into the story now because Fey hadn’t really noticed or thought about it *oblivious*).

“He’s all right, I guess,” muttered Fey, “but he’s no Leandriel.” (Leandriel defined the “tall, dark, and handsome” cliché)

“Leandriel?” Kallara’s pointed ears seemed to perk up in interest at the name.

Fey felt her face heat up. Oh my god, am I blushing? I do not blush. Crap, I think I’m blushing. Stop it RIGHT NOW. Fey took a deep breath and blanked out any thoughts of blue-eyed warrior angels (well, she tried, anyway).

“Oh, nobody,” said Fey with an attempt at a casual tone (she is a horrible liar). Changing the subject with no attempt at subtlety (she’s pretty bad at subtlety, too), she asked, “Hey, Kallara, could I have an empty flask?”

Kallara was so amused at Fey’s flustered reaction that she did not even ask what the flask was for, simply pulling a clear, cylindrical flask out of a cupboard and handing it over.

“Thanks,” Fey muttered. She then bid a tactical retreat from an unfavourable situation (i.e. ran away). Tucking the flask under one arm, Fey escaped into the forest.

“Bye!” Kallara called cheerfully after the retreating adventurer.

Gah. Gah. Gah. Eek. “Okay, stop,” Fey muttered to herself as she tried to calm down. She rarely ever became emotionally worked up, but once she did, she found it hard to return to normal (well, “normal” for her). As she travelled through the forest, her pace, usually a lively walk, increased to the point that she was almost jogging. By the time she reached the stream (her destination, which the narrator irresponsibly forgot to mention), Fey was slightly out of breath, but still keyed up.

Filling her newly-acquired flask with water, Fey gave a mental sigh. As usual, trying not to think of something did not work. She had to work through her mental issues and resolve them before she would calm down (well, just the one mental issue; there isn’t enough room in the story to work through all of our protagonist’s mental issues). Okay, so I thought Leandriel was cool and nice and handsome. Happy, brain? I admitted it. There’s no reason why he wouldn’t be super-awesome, considering that he’s an NPC. Real people like that don’t exist (this is the literary technique known as “dramatic irony”[i]). With that admission, Fey was finally able to return to a semblance of calm and return to her usual (“normal”) self.

“Here, Amethyst, get in.” Fey dropped her slime into the flask of water. “Osmosis.”

Amethyst swelled to triple her original size, taking up about a third of the volume of the flask.

“Shrink.” Amethyst returned to her normal size, suspended and neutrally buoyant[ii] in the water. “Keep going.”

Fey was so amused by her expanding and contracting slime that she simply sat, watching, for several minutes. Belatedly, she wondered if Amethyst needed to breathe. The slime seemed as lively as ever after several minutes underwater. Fey noticed that Amethyst kept her bubble floating on top of the surface of the water. Curious, she poked it down. Amethyst began to look rather uncomfortable and changed to a bluer colour, looking distinctly deoxygenated. Fey let the bubble float to the surface, and the slime returned to normal.

“So… You’re using it like a snorkel? Or is it the equivalent of an elephant’s trunk?” Amethyst did not reply, continuing her strange aquatic activities without a sound.

Fey’s amusement was interrupted when she heard approaching footsteps. She stood up, flask in hand, just as Blade became visible through the trees (Yay!...? He’s back…).

Fey was in a good mood from her fun and fruitful adventures (since ditching Blade), so when she said, “What are you doing here?” her tone was of idle curiosity rather than borderline hostility.

“Kallara told me you went this way when I went to pick up the strength tonic,” explained Blade.

Well, that’s what I get for walking in a straight line (Fey is normally sneakier than that, but was distracted by thoughts of he-whom-we-are-avoiding-thinking-of). Fey could not think of anything else to say, and was anticipating an awkward silence when Blade exhaled noisily, raking a hand through his short hair, and said, “Look, I’m sorry.”

*Mental blank* Fey blinked several times in disbelief, and her mouth moved noiselessly before she managed to say, “What?” (She’s not the ‘pardon me’ type.)

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

Blade did not know exactly what he was apologizing for. He was simply following some wise advice his elder sister had given him: “If you’re not getting along with a girl, just apologize. Chances are, she’s mad at you for something, even if she’s not conscious of it.” It was very effective advice, but few people were capable of apologizing when they were not even aware of doing anything wrong. Blade was figuratively a much ‘bigger man’ than most people (physically, he fell an inch short of the coveted 180cm/6-foot benchmark that all male main characters attain).

“Uh, for trying to kill your slime?” he guessed.

Fey made a ‘he has a point’ face. She had not been expecting an apology, but appreciated it. “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

Fey smiled enigmatically.

Blade was as startled as Fey had been upon hearing his apology when he received the system notice:

“I’m logging out now,” Fey announced. Arwyn’s avatar winked out of existence while Blade was still blinking in disbelief.

“That’s one weird girl,” he muttered to himself.

***

Leandriel’s sword, imbued with holy light, sizzled as it sliced through the undead banshee. The withered creature opened its mouth and shrieked, but Leandriel had purchased a silence charm to protect himself from the banshee’s devastating voice, and the fight took place in eerie soundlessness.

Leandriel neatly lunged and beheaded the creature before turning to meet the other monsters. Creatures with dark affinity instinctively hated creatures with holy affinity, having a much higher sensing range and attack initiative when facing their opposing element.

Dodging, blocking, slashing, and spinning, Leandriel used basic swordwork in order to defeat the monsters. He was gradually getting used to the altered balance required to fight effectively with wings, training the necessary adjustments into his muscle memory.

He had not realized that he was keeping an eye on his friend list until he noticed the green “Online” next to Fey’s name change to a red “Offline”. The distraction cost him a scratch on his arm in the gap between two pieces of plate armour.

Hissing with pain, Leandriel seared the wound with holy light before it could start rotting from the dark creature’s unclean claws. He turned his mind back to battle; he had a dungeon to clear.

***

◊◊◊

Arwyn pulled off the game helmet, feeling strangely sluggish. Looking at the clock, she saw that it was 8:00 a.m. (Clearly, the author is taking liberties with the passing of time again.) She had been asleep for twelve hours, and her body had not taken kindly to such an extended length of inactivity. With a groan, Arwyn rolled off the recliner, managed a wobbly landing on her feet, and headed to the kitchen for food.

I’d better not play for that long again, she thought as she cooked eggs for breakfast and boiled water for tea. Sleeping for too long was as bad for health as sleeping too little.

Determined to stay out of Fantasia until her regular bedtime, Arwyn planned out her day. She could not remember the last time she had been awake at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday, so she had more hours to fill than usual.

Arwyn spent the morning doing an unusual amount of household chores (she was the type to put things off until they absolutely couldn’t be avoided). Then she called her friend Leah to set up a lunch date followed by shopping. It was the sort of thing Leah enjoyed, and even if Arwyn did not care about following the latest fashion trends, she did need to periodically buy new clothing, so it was a regular (but not frequent) pastime of theirs.

“Hi!” Leah and Arwyn hugged in greeting. They met at a restaurant that was one step up from fast food, and two steps down from being fancy and gourmet. (They liked to eat real food in actual quantities.)

After sitting down and ordering, the pair chattered about their adventures in Fantasia.

“I’ve met some nice people and we’re adventuring together,” said Leah. “It’s really cool underwater. The fish and the coral and the plants are beautiful.”

“Sounds like a tropical vacation,” Arwyn commented.

“Yeah. My only complaint is that there are almost no guys around.”

Arwyn raised an eyebrow in a ‘you should have expected that’ expression. “They’re called mermaids for a reason.”

Leah flapped a hand at her friend. “Yeah, yeah, don’t lecture me about thinking ahead. My prefrontal cortex[iii] just isn’t as active as yours.” There was a reason Leah and Arwyn were friends; despite the fact that Leah liked makeup and clothes, she was really just as nerdy as Arwyn.

“So, any guys over in the Elvenwood?” Leah asked carelessly. When Arwyn’s expression indicated a ‘yes’, Leah’s interest sharpened. “Spill it.”

Arwyn pulled out her phone and accessed an image file she had taken in Fantasia. It was a snapshot of Leandriel standing in front of a glowing teleportation gate. (She knows that she’s being kind of creepy and stalkerish, but she couldn’t help it.)

Leah, grabbed the phone with a high-pitched sound of excitement (*squee*). “An angel? Where did you find an angel?”

“He kind of fell out of the sky. Okay, well, he literally fell out of the sky.”

“Tell me the whole story right now.” Leah commanded. Arwyn complied, and recounted all the events between Leandriel’s crash landing and his disappearance into the teleportation gate (see Chapters 12 and 13 if you don’t remember).

“Wow. Just wow. He’s so cool it’s ridiculous.” Leah’s sentence summarized Leandriel’s existence fairly accurately.

Arwyn sighed in total agreement. “Too bad he’s an NPC.”

“What? No! How do you know?” Leah exclaimed with dismay.

“He’s a level 99 angel. Fantasia came out a week ago. Do the math.” (Leah, not being as obsessed with wings, had not memorized the level requirements for all the winged species in Fantasia.)

Leah sighed. “I should’ve known he was too good to be true.”

The friends ate their food when it arrived and then walked to the nearby mall. No mention of Blade occurred throughout the afternoon.

Footnotes:

[i] Irony that is inherent in speeches or situations of a drama and is understood by the audience but not the characters in the play

dramatic irony. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved August 19, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dramatic irony

[ii] An object is neutrally buoyant if it has the same average density as the fluid around it. It will neither float to the surface nor sink to the bottom, instead staying somewhere in the middle.

[iii] The prefrontal cortex is a part of the brain associated with planning, impulse control, and decision-making