Chapter 17

Arwyn pulled off the game helmet and sat up, the cheerful morning light coming through the windows in contrast to the deep night she had been experiencing in-game. Squinting, she glanced at the clock and saw that it was just after 7:00 a.m.

Sunday mornings were when Arwyn went to tae kwon do, so she busied herself with making a substantial breakfast. If she did not eat, she would feel faint after only a few minutes of running around, and if she ate late, she would have to suffer the discomfort of feeling the food sit like a stone in her stomach as her body focused powering her muscles rather than digesting the food (don't even get her started about the one time she ate at McDonald's right before class).

Arwyn enjoyed the quiet of the morning, broken only by the small sounds of her dishes and cutlery. While she was not (completely) antisocial, quiet alone time was when she relaxed and recharged her mental energies, able to act how she wanted without worrying about affecting others. Her internal dialogue was too interesting for her to ever be bored by herself. (By reading up to this chapter, you readers implicitly agree, since her internal dialogue is what's driving this entire story and she's spent 3/4 of the scenes alone. Evil pets don't count.)

Readying herself for class, Arwyn put on the traditional white tae kwon do uniform of loose pants and long-sleeved jacket top. Fastening the jacket to her body was her red belt (it's the one below black), wrapped twice around her waist before being knotted twice in the front (this left enough length on the loose ends that she occasionally managed to whack herself in the face while kicking and jumping; not so much with the thicker-waisted). Her impractically long hair was confined to a ponytail, and she filled up her large (blue) water bottle from her pitcher of filtered water before heading out.

Tae kwon do practice took place in the gymnasium of a local elementary school, rented out on weekends for a variety of activities. Upon arrival, Arwyn took off her shoes and socks, then bowed as she entered the gym. Bowing was a very frequent and important action in tae kwon do; you bowed when entering and exiting the room, at the formal beginning and end of class, when you paired up with a partner, before you talked to someone of a higher belt level, before leaving someone's presence, when you gave or received anything, and any time the grandmaster walked by (you know, the guy with the eight stripes on his black belt who could literally beat you in a fight with both hands tied behind his back). Ancient tradition and showing respect aside, Arwyn thought constant bowing was a good way to strengthen the lower back muscles.

Class started with lining up in order by belt level, then age; Arwyn was in the back, since it was a high-belt class for red belts and up. Everyone bowed to the instructor, who then directed the warm-up. Much of tae kwon do classes consisted of improving strength, flexibility, and endurance through mundane exercises. People who peeked in during the beginning part of class expecting flashy stunts or intense fighting were usually disappointed to see red and black belts running laps, doing push-ups (or whatever you called the pathetic things Arwyn did) and sit ups, or quietly stretching (though whimpering wasn't that uncommon during partner stretching). It was not until everyone's muscles were warm and loose that the tae kwon do techniques really appeared.

Every week, the class practiced different areas. Sometimes they worked on patterns, also called forms, sets of linked kicks, punches, and blocks that were part of the standard curriculum to advance in belt level. Also common were classes focused on one or a few kicks, with the aim to improve speed, balance, power, and accuracy. Occasionally, they learned 'street fighting,' simple techniques that would work well against opponents in a real fight (and would get you disqualified from a competition); as a rule, starting fights and using tae kwon do techniques to bully others would get you banned from the sport, but if someone else threw the first punch, you were allowed to dodge in a way that ended up with the other person face-down on the ground with their arm twisted behind their back.

This week's practice went into raising the height of their axe kicks (seen in Chapter 3; the foot goes up over the target and smashes straight down). Arwyn paired up with the most flexible girl in class (and bowed), then accepted a hand target (she thinks they're called hand targets because they're hand-sized; they were really foot targets most of the time) from the assistant instructor (with a bow). Flexibility was variable between individuals in class; as a general rule, the older and more muscular you were, the less flexible you were. Some of the practitioners could barely kick a target at waist height, while Arwyn and her partner started the target at face level.

Settling into a fighting stance, Arwyn focused on the target, then brought her foot up and snapped it down through the target with a yell. “Hai!” Yells were called 'ki-ups', with 'ki' meaning 'energy'. The loud cries at the moment of impact psychologically invigorated a person to strike with more energy, as well as physiologically causing the abdominal muscles to tense at the correct time. Hit at the correct angle, the hand target made a loud slapping sound a split second after Arwyn's ki-up.

After a few kicks with both legs, Arwyn took the target from her partner (with a bow) and held it for the other girl to kick. (Her ki-up sounded more like “Eh!”) Time passed with a sense of cameraderie as Arwyn and her partner grinningly held the target higher and higher until it was well over head height, technically physically impossible to hit even if you were able to do front splits. The girls circumvented this technicality by bouncing onto the balls of their feet, standing on their toes and elevating their effective height by a few inches (*sneaky*).

When an hour had passed, class ended (with bowing), and Arwyn headed home tired, sweaty, and slightly sore, but completely relaxed and glowing from her exertions. (Get your minds out of the gutter; it's an exercise high. Though if you're being warned about this, it means the author's mind is also in the gutter.) After she took a (necessary) shower and devoured lunch (like a lunch-devouring monster), “completely relaxed” became “sleepy”. Though Arwyn had been getting plenty of sleep since purchasing Fantasia, she had been conscious and thinking for over three days, six if you counted the faster time in the game; her body was rested, but her mind was weary. Arwyn went into her room and sank into her queen-sized bed for a nap (tsk tsk, going to bed with wet hair. This is how weird hairstyles are born).

An hour later, Arwyn wakened naturally, feeling amazingly refreshed. She had had one of those perfect naps where she woke with her mind completely focused and her body warm and relaxed, with none of the small discomforts usually associated with sleeping, like a sore neck or a dry mouth. (Even her hair was fine; one of the properties of really long hair was that gravity pulled it into the same style no matter how you abused it.) She indulged herself by lazing about like a cat (she had five full-sized pillows that she liked to shift into various configurations for lazing on) before finally getting up.

Contentedly, Arwyn turned on her computer. Technically, she did not have to work on weekends, but deadlines were deadlines no matter when you did the work, so she tended to spread her workload out to weekends if there was nothing better to do. The next few hours were spent immersed in spreadsheets and emails.

Arwyn continued working after dinner. Night had fallen, and she was about to turn off her laptop when Leah sent her an instant message:

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - How was TKD?

ArwynTheElf – Great. You should take it with me.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - I will if you take yoga with me.

This was an ongoing negotiation between the two friends as each tried to convince the other of the superiority of their chosen form of exercise. Leah contended that tae kwon do was too violent and a high-risk activity for injury, while Arwyn maintained that yoga did not even count as exercise (and wasn't violent enough).

ArwynTheElf – I'd rather... go to tae kwon do by myself.

(She had been about to write something melodramatic like, “I'd rather eat low-fat ice cream”, but then realized she didn't find yoga that distasteful.)

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - Good, because I'd rather not have somebody stomp on my foot and have to hobble around for weeks.

ArwynTheElf – That only happened once.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - What about the time you sprained your ankle and hobbled around for weeks?

ArwynTheElf – That also only happened once.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - And the time you twisted your knee?

ArwynTheElf – Okay, that one doesn't even count; it wasn't a full sprain, I wasn't hobbling, and I didn't even have to skip a TKD class.

ArwynTheElf – Anyways, are you going to list every injury that I ever had? Because been there, suffered that.

Arwyn did not actually get injured frequently in tae kwon do class, but after almost a decade of weekly and twice-weekly classes, the incidents added up.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - Actually, I wanted to check on your Fantasia progress. I trained hard last night and got to level 15.

ArwynTheElf – ...19

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - *swear word* Seriously? HOW?

(Leah actually wrote “*swear word*”; she swears infrequently, like Arwyn.)

ArwynTheElf – I got the Magic (*song reference*[i]). Oh, and sometimes hunting is more efficient in a party.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - >_> Of course I hunt in a party. Solo mages are just asking to die, and I'm not antisocial like you.

ArwynTheElf – I'm only antisocial towards stupid people.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - And everyone is stupid.

ArwynTheElf – You understand me so well ^_^

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - Well, it's the least I can do, since you're so great at helping me destroy the evidence.

(This was an ongoing joke that Leah and Arwyn played on whatever agency might be monitoring their chat history. They are both law-abiding citizens.)

ArwynTheElf – I'd patent the process, if its only use weren't so illegal.

(Still joking. Really. There is no process. *doth protest too much*[ii])

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... - k, well, I'm going to go try to catch up with you in Fantasia. Bye and goodnight.

ArwynTheElf – Nightnight.

Leah-IfIHadAMillionDollars... is offline.

Arwyn took Leah's game-playing as permission to do so herself. Saving her work, she shut her laptop and prepared for sleeping. She brushed her teeth (and flossed; good dental hygiene is important to overall health) before climbing onto the recliner and putting on the game helmet (“Welcome,” it whispered seductively). Setting the alarm for work the next morning, Arwyn turned on the game.

◊◊◊

Darkness.

“Scanning. Player detected. Welcome back to Fantasia, Fey E'lan.”

A flash of light.

◊◊◊

Fey blinked into existence a short distance from Moonwood village. Almost immediately after logging on, she received a private message:

Fey felt a jolt of nervous anticipation at the prospect of seeing the angel again.

When the chat disconnected, Fey gave herself a stern talking-to while walking towards the Moonwood. Okay, get all of the squealing and giggling over with before he gets here; you will not embarrass yourself by acting like an idiot. (Her fangirl self subsided with a giggle and no promises.)

Since she had some time before Leandriel's arrival, Fey wandered into Kallara's shop upon reaching the village.

“Hi,” she greeted the healer inside the tree-shop, trailed by Magic and Boris, with Amethyst still in her flask practicing Osmosis.

“Fey! How are you?” Upon seeing the expanding and contracting slime, Kallara's eyes crinkled in amusement. “Ah, so that is what you wanted the flask for. I had guessed that you wanted to practice your Enchant spell.”

“Oh. Uh,” Fey stuttered (not-so-eloquently). At level 9, Amethyst's Osmosis made her big enough to almost overflow the flask, so Fey had been planning to return it, but Kallara's idea was a good one. “I'll be doing that now that Amethyst is getting bigger.” (Tsk, tsk, trying to pretend that she had been planning it all along.)

Getting to her purpose for visiting, Fey opened her backpack and pulled out the various plants (corpses) that Boris had gathered for her. “I brought these for you.”

Kallara exclaimed in delight after examining the pile of plants. “Some of these are quite rare! I cannot manage to grow them in my garden, so it is always a hassle to obtain them.”

“Boris just found them for me,” Fey admitted, indicating the miniature boar. Struck by an idea, Fey offered, “Would you like to take him? He could gather herbs for you.” Boris' physical fighting style did not complement Fey's abilities, especially since he was quite small and vulnerable to being killed, so Fey thought this was a good opportunity to find him a more suitable owner.

“Oh no, I couldn't,” Kallara refused, clearly flattered at the offer. “It would be irresponsible to send him into the forest alone, and I am unable to leave the shop unattended to supervise him. You keep him and bring back the plants he finds.” While talking, Kallara's (elegant) hands were busy sorting the plants by variety. At seeing one particular plant, she reached into a drawer (nope, can't explain how a tree can grow sliding drawers) and pulled out a pair of tongs, which she used to carefully separate the plant from the rest.

“What's that?” Fey asked, examining the reddish-purple plant. It had glossy, broad leaves and no flowers, and did not look dangerous enough to warrant special treatment (not that Fey knew anything about plants).

“This is furyweed, and it is quite poisonous.”

“I didn't notice anything when I picked it up,” Fey commented, puzzled.

“It has to enter through a cut or swallowing,” Kallara explained. “I am just being cautious.”

“Quite poisonous,” huh? When Kallara turned back to the rest of the plants. Fey took a few of the furyweed leaves and placed them in her pouch (it's not stealing if she's the one who collected it in the first place).

After tallying up the plants, Kallara said, “I can offer you 300g for all of them.” This was quite a generous offer, double the price Fey could obtain at a general store. Kallara could afford to pay an inflated price because she could use her considerable skill to turn the ingredients into rare and high-quality potions.

“Oh no, they are a gift. You've helped me so much already.” Fey had expended zero effort in collecting the plants and was not planning on making a profit on them. She had brought them to Kallara because she subconsciously already thought of the NPC as a friend and thought the healer would appreciate them.

“In that case...” Kallara opened a cupboard and pulled out a very large flask, about the same volume as one of Fey's backpacks. “You can continue training Amethyst in this,” said the healer, passing the container over. The Moonwood did not have a glass-blower's, so all of Kallara's bottles and flasks were imported from the nearest human town; including importation costs, the oversized flask was worth about 100g.

“Wow, thanks.” Fey accepted the cylindrical container with both hands. Empty, it weighed little, but when filled with water, it would be difficult to haul around without her weight-reducing backpacks. “What would you use such a large flask for, anyways?”

“Well, I have not made one in quite a while, but there are more dilute potions that are meant to be absorbed through the skin, like a medicinal bath.” Kallara grinned. “The majority are vanity charms, so I can charge outrageously for them.”

Fey grinned back, understanding the fun in making a large profit off of people who could afford it. (Plus, saying the word “outrageously” was fun in and of itself.)

“So do you need help with anything?” Fey asked. “I have a few minutes before I have to meet someone.”

Fey puttered around in the potion shop in the time before Leandriel's arrival. Kallara (of course) needed water, so Fey was dispatched with the bucket; she took the opportunity to fill up her extra-large flask. Amethyst, of course, was not put into the water; she was busy bashing plants into a pulp with strong, rapid beats of her bubble (*food processor*). Magic hopped around in exploration, eventually traveling up to the ceiling (*defy gravity*) to take a closer look at the plants hung out to dry. In contrast, Boris hid in a safe corner after inspection of a pile of powder led to a violent sneezing fit (which was cutely hilarious).

“Your visitor is almost here,” Kallara announced while hanging the new plants out to dry.

“How do you know?”

“I can sense the teleportation gate activating.” Healing was considered a subcategory of magecraft in Fantasia, so Kallara was technically a high-level mage and sensitive to large flows of mana. “Slow down,” the healer chided when Fey suddenly became clumsy with hurry, “it will be several minutes before the gate finishes activating.”

Fey carefully finished her task of hanging up half the plants, then hurriedly collected her pets (she didn't even notice Magic's impressive double backflip as he dropped from the ceiling) and rushed out the tree-shop's archway with a quick, “Bye!” to Kallara. The healer shook her head indulgently.

Fey's rushing lasted until she arrived at the teleportation gate, still slowly brightening with magical energy. She had a mortal fear of being late, born out of a childhood with a sister who was chronically late (and dragged her into lateness by extension). Relaxing, she stood at the edge of the magical circle and waited.

Fey was not the only individual waiting at the gate. Attracted by the bright light, many players had gathered to watch curiously. The anticipation slowly built as the gate increased in brightness. Onlookers were not disappointed when, in a final burst of light, a warrior angel appeared, his shiny armour and pure white wings almost blinding in the disappearing glow.

The dramatic moment was ruined when, barely a second after his arrival, the bolder (more shameless) players rushed forward.

“Can I have some gold?”

“Can I have some items?”

“Let me use your gate key!”

Fey was disgusted at the shamelessness of the requests. Does anybody actually get anything from begging like that? Elves are supposed to be elegant and dignified; if they wanted to be greedy and rude, they should have become goblins or orcs. She stayed standing where she was, next to one of the stone pillars that marked the boundaries of the dimensional gateway.

Leandriel had been getting this kind of reaction every time he teleported after Fantasia had been released to the general public. He hoped that as the average level rose and teleportation became more common, people would stop swarming him (like locusts). Ignoring the (shameless and) repetitive requests from the people around him, he looked over their heads (he can do that because he's really tall) and spotted Fey. The elf smiled when they made eye contact. “Hi,” he saw her mouth as she raised a hand in greeting, though the sound was lost in the crowd’s chatter.

Leandriel tried to edge forward, but the players in front of him refused to take the hint and stayed firmly planted in his way. Fed up, he snapped his wings open and beat them once against the air (*whoosh*).

Fey's smile of greeting shifted into one of (sadistic) enjoyment as a gust of wind blew her hair back from her face. Players were knocked left and right (and backwards and forwards) by Leandriel's massive, powerful wings. Aside from the fact that the angel looked amazingly dangerous and cool as he walked forwards with his wings half-raised in warning, Fey liked people who were not so nice that they let others walk all over them. (Her inner fangirl was jumping up and down, squealing, but Fey firmly tied her up and shoved her into a dark hole in her mind.)

“Hello,” Leandriel greeted her politely (as if he hadn't just knocked a bunch of people onto their butts).

“Hello,” Fey echoed, equally polite (as if she hadn't just had a sadistic moment of enjoying seeing people knocked onto their butts).

“Shall we?” Leandriel indicated a trail out of the village, and the pair made their way into the forest.

Footnotes:

[i]This is a reference to the song “Magic” by B.o.b ft. Rivers Cuomo, which is a super-catchy song that does not actually reflect the author's music preferences.

[ii]The full line from Shakespeare's play Hamlet is “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”