Chapter 19

Fey and Leandriel managed to travel to the last cavern of the dungeon floor without (further) incident. Populating the space were level 20 monsters that resembled giant black tortoises, except that their shells were jointed to allow them to curl into a fully-armoured ball. Fey evaluated the tortoises. Although they were thickly armoured by their shells, their heads and legs were vulnerable when they were not curled up. This weakness, plus their slow movement speed, made them good targets for her fighting abilities (or lack thereof).

“Excellent,” Fey said in her best evil villain accent, earning her an odd look from Leandriel (more like a 'you're odd' look). “Are you going to go now?” she asked Leandriel, having worked out why the angel had chosen to bring her to the dungeon. With monsters of all levels, it was a perfect place for them to train separately, together (or is that “together, separately”?).

“It would be rude of me to bring you here, then simply leave you behind.” Leandriel had been planning on spending some time helping Fey adjust to fighting the new monsters before descending to lower floors to train on opponents closer to his own level.

“No, it's fine. You've done me a huge favour (*borderline cheating*) by showing me such a great training spot. You go on ahead, and we can hang out during breaks or something.” When Leandriel made no sign of moving, Fey added, “I won't get mad.”

Leandriel raised his eyebrows at the last sentence, clearly having some experience with the female half of the species in combination with that phrase.

Fey grinned at the angel's skepticism. “And I won't say 'I won't get mad' and then get mad. I'm not a normal girl.” (*understatement of the year*)

Having seen ample evidence of Fey's lack of normality, Leandriel decided to take the elf at her word. Ever since reaching level 90, it took over two full days of non-stop training to gain a single level. He planned on reaching level 100 again by the end of the day, but it would require a lot of extra hours of playing if he spent too much time without training. “Okay, then. I will be on the eleventh floor. Message me if anything happens.”

“Bye.”

Leandriel nodded and descended further into the dungeon. Before he left, he cast Helping Hand on Fey and her pets.

With Leandriel gone, Fey could relax the mental ropes tying up her inner fangirl and focus on fighting (the inner nine-year-old still needed restraining because she was wearing a cape). Eyeing the tortoises more carefully (everyone knows the difference between a turtle and a tortoise, right?), Fey noticed that there were two varieties, one with rounded bumps on its shell, and one with short cone-shaped spikes. The ones with bumpy shells looked less (pointy) dangerous, so Fey decided to attack one of those first. She drew her weapons but frowned, looking between the blades and the monster's thick shell. By her guess, as soon as she launched her first attack, it would curl up defensively and she would be unable to do further damage.

Better make the first hit count, then. Thoughtfully, she pulled a furyweed leaf (thornweed is so three chapters ago) from her pouch. “Here Amethyst, eat this.” Fey fed her beloved pet the highly poisonous plant (taken out of context, this sentence would indicate a dangerous level of madness).

“Now, poison slime: furyweed.” Amethyst obediently secreted a layer of furyweed poison. Holding the slime by the bubble, Fey carefully dabbed poison along the flats of her sword and dagger. Since furyweed poison had to enter the body first to work, it seemed logical to combine it with a cutting edge (far more practical than force-feeding it to the monsters). Preparations complete, Fey hid her pets in a safe corner, then focused on a particular bumpy-shelled tortoise. Standing just outside its area of awareness, she charged her sword with Mana Blade, then ran forward and chopped at its head with Vicious Strike.

I wonder why it's called a volly? Fey pondered as she took advantage of the stun to inflict more damage (hint: it's a really bad pun). Even the hide on the volly's head and neck was quite tough, so Fey did not land critical strikes, only flesh wounds that bled sluggishly (tortoise-ly?).

As Fey had predicted, as soon as the stun wore off, the volly curled into an armoured ball, accompanied by the sound of shell grating against shell. The “curl up defensively” part was partially inaccurate, however, as the now-boulder-like creature began to roll towards her, picking up speed as it went (*curl up offensively*).

Uh... Fey began to back up nervously, then jumped sideways as the live boulder, up to her waist in height, crushed its way through where she had been standing (*unexpectedly dangerous*). Despite not having its eyes visible under its shell, the volly appeared to be able to see and track Fey, turning to make another attempt at flattening her.

The next three minutes were spent playing 'don't get run over', which Fey did not particularly enjoy. The volly could build up to quite a speed when going in a straight line, but had very slow acceleration and turning, so Fey eventually settled on jogging in a small circle as the best method to stay alive (and unmaimed). Even at a jog, Fey could calculate that the furyweed poison could inflict a maximum of 900 damage, more than double her own maximum health, so it was only a matter of waiting until the toxin took its toll on the volly.

When the shelled monster finally stopped rolling, uncurling and disintegrating into small black pebbles, Fey was slow to react. Continuing to jog in a circle, she skidded over the pebbles and almost lost her balance. She managed to right herself by reflexively jerking her arms to compensate, but very nearly stabbed herself in the eye (remember, children, running around holding an unsheathed sword is worse than running around with scissors). “Woah.” She slowly sheathed sword and dagger with extra care.

“Phew.” Fey's breathing was slightly deepened from jogging, but she still had plenty of energy left and could maintain the slow pace for quite a while. Taking stock of the situation, she dug through the black pebbles and found a few coins as well as a small round stone.

Analyzing the results of her fight (“fight”), Fey decided that she had a satisfactory strategy for defeating the vollys, and did not bother experimenting with different tactics. Since she thought it was unlikely that her pets' skills would be able to penetrate the volly's shells, Fey sent her mini-army back to (terrorize) the cave spiders. She was finding that having her pets only passively gain half her experience points was not working well, as their lower levels put them in danger against the monsters she fought. “Go train and level up,” she told them, “and don't forget to collect the loot.”

Amethyst sat on Magic, who was sitting on Boris, and the miniature boar trotted off, flanked by three glooms on either side (*travel formation*). Fey grinned and took a snapshot of the almost artistic arrangement as they left, then focused on her own training.

Judging by the speed the rolling volly had displayed, Fey thought she could handle attacking two at once. Drawing just her sword, she used Vicious Strike on one monster, then immediately repeated the attack on another before turning to run and dodge. Avoiding two boulder-monsters coming from different directions was more challenging, but manageable.

Fey's training went smoothly for a time, with her skills and experience steadily increasing.

Of course, the easy times could not last. Fey ran into trouble when she neglected to reapply furyweed poison to her sword. After striking a volly, the poison status failed to appear, and she found herself in the unenviable position of being chased by a live boulder that was in no danger of imminent death.

Uh oh. Fey scrambled to think while still running. Out of all her skills and abilities, the only one with any chance of penetrating the volly's thick shell was Mana Edge, and she did not think it was yet at a high enough level.

Here goes nothing. Having not thought of a different plan, Fey attacked with Mana Edge. Charging her blades with sharp-edged mana, Fey abruptly changed directions and ran directly at the volly. The shelled monster hesitated briefly at her unexpected action, and Fey took advantage of the pause to slash at it. At the last possible moment, she decided to aim for the crack between two segments of shell as a possible weak point.

Fey continued past the volly as she cut at it, unable to tell if she had done any damage. With a mental shrug, she attacked again and again, turning, dodging, and slashing repeatedly.

Using Mana Edge added experience to the Mana Blade skill that the subskill took its level from. At level 5, Mana Edge allowed the warrior to ignore 15 points of defence.

Eventually, the volly collapsed, tired and bleeding, unable to maintain its curl. Fey sprang forward and aimed a flurry of strikes at the monster's head and neck, and it crumbled away into black gravel.

Fey immediately sat down, panting. The high speed of attacking and dodging required far more energy than simply jogging around, and her (wimpy) muscles were collecting interest on the extra exertion she had forced out of them (our heroine doesn't seem to get along that well with her body, does she?). In addition to her fatigue, her legs were covered in bruises up to her hips where she had not dodged fast enough; if the volly had been hurtling along at full speed rather than slowing and turning, she could have had an entire limb crushed.

Getting up wearily, Fey went to call Amethyst, then realized that her pets could not hear her with from nine caverns away. Wishing she could private message her pets, she limped towards the cave spiders' habitat.

Just before entering the cave spiders' cavern, Fey braced herself for the sight of mangled spider bodies. She was rather surprised when instead, she was confronted with a nearly empty space, occupied only by her pets. With Amethyst's deadly bubble leading the way, the team (should we officially call them Feypets?) had quickly eradicated the entire population of spiders and was now waiting for them to respawn.

From what she could observe, it appeared to Fey that her pets were amusing themselves by having an odd sort of shadow-puppet contest. Onyx, Inkblot, Ebony, Midnight, Shadow, and Obsidian competed by morphing their bodies into various shapes, while Amethyst, Magic, and Boris served as judges. Clearly, the judging was not impartial, as Amethyst was supporting a slime-shaped shadow, while Magic and Boris each favoured their own shape.

“Um, excuse me,” Fey interjected in a mock-scolding voice, “you should all be voting for this one.” Fey picked up Obsidian, who had copied her own form in miniature, and gave him a pat. “Though I have to admit, this one probably deserves to win.” Fey referred to Shadow, who had replicated Leandriel's shape in incredible detail, right down to the feathery texture of his wings and the intricate shape of his armour. “You, stop that,” Fey said to Ebony, who had chosen the shape of a spider and was making her skin creep with the level of detail. The gloom relaxed its shape into its natural small-eared bunny form.

Fun aside, Fey checked on her pets' progress. “Let's see what you've accomplished.” The glooms had reached level 12, while her senior pets were now level 16, and they had made increases in various skills and abilities.

“Very good,” she praised, and her pets made various cute sounds in reply. “You guys can go train in the next cavern over if you run out of spiders.” The level 12 cavern was populated with giant rats[i] (or rodents of unusual size, if you prefer[ii]), which she thought her pets could handle without much trouble. “Don't let anyone die,” Fey told Amethyst, charging her with the safety of the group after adding a fresh coat of poison to her weapons. The slime nodded solemnly, then jumped onto Boris' back and commanded the group forward into the next cavern.

Fey stopped to gather up the pile of cave spider fangs and coins her pets had piled up for her, then returned to her own training against the vollys. As she passed through the giant rats' cavern, she smiled (and winced) to see her pets already wreaking bloody havoc on the rodents (like, quite bloody).

***

In the seventh cavern of floor B11, Leandriel battled level 107 chaos snakes. The snakes' eyes and blood flashed in (chaotic) hypnotic patterns that threatened to mesmerize him unless he activated his Battle Focus ability. Lunging forward, he cut the head off of one of the giant serpents. Instead of dying, the chaotic creature grew two new heads, both of which hissed aggressively at him.

This was Leandriel's first time fighting chaos-element monsters, and it was the most confusing experience of his life. The snakes constantly changed element so that from moment to moment, his holy-type attacks would inflict half damage, double damage, or even heal. In addition, they had a 50% chance of reviving every time he landed a fatal blow, as well as a bewildering variety of constantly changing abilities. All in all, he had no idea what was happening.

Strategy was out the window, and Leandriel was relying on his sword skills, reflexes, and self-heal abilities to survive (though that's a strategy in and of itself...meh). He made a mental note to congratulate the game designer who had come up with the concept; his stated goal had been, “Let's confuse the hell out of them,” and the idea had been implemented flawlessly. (He also felt a mild urge to punch said designer in the face.) To make up for the incredible difficulty of fighting them, chaos-type monsters were worth triple the experience points of their normal counterparts of the same level.

Fey's private message distracted Leandriel enough that a snake was able to bite deeply into his arm, apparently temporarily able to ignore his armour. Fortunately, the attack ended up healing him instead of inflicting damage (*extra confusing*). In the midst of battle, Leandriel found it easier to communicate through sound rather than text, so he switched to audio chatting.

“Fey? I am fighting right now. Do you have any objections to using audio chat?”

“No, of course not. Sorry to bother you; do you need to focus right now?”

“Not hardly,” Leandriel said with a mixture of amusement and frustration. He seemed to be making about the same amount of progress irrespective of the effort he put in or the level and type of skills he used. Misjudging a strike, Leandriel barely grazed a snake with his sword, but it dropped dead.

Briefly, Leandriel described his current situation. His mood improved, shifting from frustration to curiosity when Fey laughed in delight.

“What are you so pleased about?”

“Oh, I just really like random things.” This statement applied both to groups of things that were random in aggregate (like capes and cowboy hats) and things that were intrinsically random (like chaos snakes). “Anyways, you're going about it all wrong,” Fey continued assuredly, voice still bright with amusement, “Fight randomness with randomness.”

“What exactly is that supposed to mean?” Leandriel dodged as a snake struck at him, slashing with his sword as its head traveled past him. The wound spewed a cloud of poisonous fumes, from which Leandriel quickly backed away.

“Don't fight them normally. Do random stuff. Ideally, you should do two things with opposite effects at the same time, like casting a blessing and attacking.”

Leandriel knew that Fey had never encountered a chaos-element monster, but she sounded so sure (she's a self-taught expert on randomness) and he had no better ideas, so he decided to follow her advice. Casting Helping Hand on the closest snake, he then chopped its head in half. The legless creature pulsed, grew legs, then exploded in a cloud of chaos-coloured mist.

“Nice,” he muttered, impressed at the results.

“Did it work?” asked Fey.

“Yes. The snake exploded quite impressively.” However, when Leandriel tried the same technique a second time, the snake doubled in size without appearing to come to any harm.

“It appears that this tactic is not foolproof.”

“Well, of course not. There's no such thing as 'foolproof' when it comes to randomness. Just enjoy it. I'd suggest more random things for you to do, but I'm afraid they would be beneath your dignity.”

“Like what?” Leandriel asked. He was not a particularly formal or snobbish person, concerned with his own dignity.

“Well let's see... If I were there, I would probably hug a snake while debuffing it, mix poison with a healing potion and throw it, tie two snakes into a knot, sing while randomly throwing them at each other... That's all I can come up with off the top of my head.” Leandriel was being shown a rare glimpse at the inner workings of Fey's mind. Normally, she pretended to be more normal than she was (which was still far less normal than the general population), but since she thought Leandriel was an NPC, she dispensed with the pretense.

“...Hug a snake?” Leandriel focused on what was arguably the strangest suggestion (though strong cases could be made for the others as well).

“Kill them with kindness, as they say. I did say that they'd be beneath your dignity.” Fey abruptly changed subjects, as she was wont to do (haha, “wont.” The author mixes fancy language into the most random places). “Oh yeah, the reason I messaged you was because I reached level 20. I'm heading over to the trainers to learn my next warrior skill.”

“Go ahead. I will likely still be here when you are finished.”

“Okay. See you later!” was Fey's cheerful farewell before she disconnected the chat.

Alone with his thoughts, Leandriel contemplated Fey's suggestions. He did not think they were 'beneath his dignity,' exactly, but... they were so odd. While he paused, the snakes' attack initiative cycled down to zero, and they began to ignore his presence.

Whether it was the influence of the chaos snakes or Fey's love of randomness he was not sure, but an uncharacteristic sense of abandon overtook Leandriel. Sheathing his sword, he grabbed a resting snake and quickly tied it around another. The first snake immediately began to attack the second, and when the second died, Leandriel was credited with experience for the kill.

Smiling, Leandriel thought a silent thank-you to his elven friend.

Footnotes:

[i] These monsters can be commonly found in the MMORPG Runescape

[ii]This refers to the book/movie The Princess Bride by William Goldman