Magic hummed happily as his surroundings materialized into the familiar tree-buildings of the Moonwood.

“Ah, I forgot to ask Fey where your friends are,” said Leandriel. “I’ll message her.”

“Over there,” said Magic, forestalling the aforementioned messaging.

Leandriel looked in the direction Magic was leaning, but saw nothing but unfamiliar players and trees. “Where?”

“In the forest,” said Magic. Deciding to save his owner a trip, he hopped to the ground. “I’ll go by myself,” the mushroom announced.

“Are you sure you can find them?” asked Leandriel. He was not worried that his pet would be in physical danger, as Magic was at least 40 levels higher than the strongest player in the area, but he was concerned about the mushroom getting lost.

“Yup,” said Magic confidently. “You go play with Fey-Fey.”

Normally, Leandriel would have worried for another two exchanges of ‘Are you sure?’ and ‘Yup’ before finally allowing his pet to go off alone, but Magic’s “play with Fey-Fey” comment flustered him considerably. He cleared his throat. “I’ll see you later, then.”

“Bye!” said Magic, completely oblivious to the more delicate undertones of the conversation. “Don’t lose!”

Leandriel chuckled. “I’ll do my best.”

As Leandriel powered up the teleportation gate to return to the laser tag practice arena, Magic hopped into the Elvenwood, following an internal beacon that told him where the other Feypets were.

(Phew. Comments finally allowed. Is Magic a Leepet now? It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.)

Half a kilometre into the forest (approximately 546.8 yards or 1640.6 feet for you weirdo Americans. Why do you have feet and yards anyways?), Magic decided that he disliked being followed by random strangers.

Now that a large portion of the players starting Fantasia near the release date were reaching level 50, winged players were not a rare sight in the Moonwood as elves attained their avariel forms. However, Leandriel’s wings still stood out for their huge wingspan and pure white plumage. His hair was short and it was obvious that he was not an elf. A few curious players had decided to see where the angel’s pet was going.

Magic considered his options. His decided course of action was clearly influenced by both his owners.

He paused and turned around. “Stop, please,” he said clearly and politely before resuming his hopping journey.

Magic did not look back, but a thud behind him let him know that at least one player had not heeded his polite request and walked into the cloud of sleeping Spore he had released into the air just ahead of them.

(It should be fairly obvious which action was due to Leandriel’s influence and which to Fey’s.)

Magic’s journey eventually took him off the beaten path. Hopping into the trees, he came upon an incongruous sight: A pink jellyfish was floating in an enormous tank of water. To make matters stranger, the water was littered with a variety of forest-scavenged objects, some benign-looking plant matter, some more ominous-looking animal remains. The water itself had taken on a red-brown tinge from a mix of blood and dirt. The tank certainly did not look like a hospitable place for a creature whose continued survival depended on a minimum level of water quality.

Amethyst hopped into view, carrying a small object wrapped in her bubble-arm. She greeted her old comrade with a delighted squeak. (“Magic! What ‘cha doing here?”)

In the absence of humanoids, Magic reverted to Squeak, finding it a more nuanced and descriptive language than English. His diction was considerably more relaxed in his native tongue. (“Lee-Lee is playing laser tag with Fey-Fey so I came to hang out with you guys.”)

Amethyst nodded while hopping to the tank. She dropped what appeared to be an eyeball into the water, where it bobbed and hit (poor) Squishy before coming to rest at the bottom. (The author is uncertain as to the relative densities of eyeballs versus ocean saltwater and would be amenable to changing this sentence if anybody had knowledge of the subject.)

Magic had to ask. He squeaked. (“What’s with the tank?”)

Amethyst caught Magic up with a brief summary of events involving the jellyfish with only nine squeaks. The Squeak language was more densely packed with information as starting pitch, pitch change, squeak duration, and pause length all affected meaning. Additionally, language structure and syntax were simplified to the absolute minimum, making the designed language much more efficient than an organically evolved one such as English. Amethyst’s last two squeaks described the Feypets’ current quest. The idea was somewhat vague and ill-defined, but they were basically dropping an assortment of ‘powerful’ items into the water in the hopes that it would empower Squishy and eventually allow the jellyfish to escape the confines of its tank to survive in air.

Magic considered the ‘plan’. Common sense told him that the whole endeavour was ludicrous, but the ludicrous part of him thought the idea made sense. He squeaked. (“What if you kill Squishy?”)

Amethyst squeaked. (“Oh, that. No problem.”) She hopped into the tank and secreted a dose of medium healing potion before pulling herself back out, dripping bloody, muddy water. Squishy had in fact been slowly suffocating in the polluted water for quite a few hours and was only alive because of Amethyst’s regular infusions of healing potions and antidotes.

Magic nodded, satisfied that the endeavour was at least proof from total disaster. He suggested a few improvements. (“Maybe take stuff out after it’s been in there a while.”)

Amethyst thought that the mushroom had a point and began grabbing objects and tossing them aside with her bubble-arm.

Boris walked in and grunted as Amethyst hit him with what appeared to be a small canine skull. He ignored the debris on the ground and walked up to the tank, crushing anything in his way with his massive hooves. From his back, Onyx dropped a heart into the tank. The addition changed the balance of the red-brown of the water decidedly in favour of red.

Boris grunted. (“Hey, Magic. Did Squishy change at all?”) The iron boar was in fact speaking Squeak, albeit five octaves lower than the rest of the Feypets.

Amethyst squeaked. (“Not yet.”)

Magic squeaked. (“Where did that heart come from?”)

Onyx squeaked. (“Cat-monster. Very strong.”)

Magic paused, then squeaked. (“I have an idea.”)

***

Fey, Sirena, Blade, Mimi, and Leandriel enjoyed a meal at Tallen’s tavern. Upon exiting the practice arena, Leandriel’s wings had remanifested in their full (inconveniently large) glory, so seating at Fey’s usual VIP table would have been tight. Fortunately, Tallen had recently added a balcony to the third floor. The acquisitive tavern-keeper quickly designated the balcony table also a VIP table and seated his most valuable guests at one end. (At the other end, he began charging curious players up the nose for a chance to eavesdrop.)

Fey was frowning despite the delicious chicken pot pie before her. “I’ve already called three times,” she muttered, referring to the high-pitched telepathic signal she had arranged to summon her pets.

“They must be out of range,” said Leandriel. He was somewhat worried as well, but was confident that Magic was strong enough to take care of any danger that might threaten the pets. He tried to reassure Fey. “Magic is level 97, so I am sure he will have protected everyone from danger.”

Blade whistled. “Da-amn.”

Sirena sent Fey a PM:

(See chapter 35 if you don’t remember.)

Fey sent Sirena a quelling look that the others at the table all caught but only Mimi interpreted correctly.

Fey sighed and took a bite of pie. “I hope they come back soon.”

“If you’re going to be so worried, you shouldn’t let them go out unsupervised,” Sirena pointed out.

Fey glared. “Shuddup. You have a pet out there, too.”

Sirena waved her fork airily. “Magic will take care of them. Leandriel just said so. Speaking of which, where’s Firefly?”

Blade answered. “She didn’t seem to want to go with Amethyst and them, so I set her up hunting in the leaf squirrel territory.” (So sensible. Like owner, like pet.)

Leandriel smiled at Mimi. “I expect you will eventually get a pet in this company.”

Mimi nodded neutrally.

Fey was enthusiastic about the idea. “Do you want a pet? I could totally get you a slime. Or you could buy one like Blade did. Or maybe did you want one of the glooms?”

Mimi smiled in amusement. “We’ll see,” was all she said.

“You should totally buy one,” said Sirena. “The pets Fey gets are all really weird.”

“They are not,” said Fey, “Leandriel, back me up here.”

“Well, they certainly are unique.”

“See? Even Leandriel thinks they’re weird,” said Sirena. “He should know.”

Fey pouted and Leandriel amended his words. “I certainly would not trade Magic for any pet in the world.”

It was at this moment that Magic sailed through the air and landed on Leandriel’s shoulder. “Hello,” the mushroom greeted.

Leandriel put down his eating utensils to pick up his pet. “Did you learn how to fly?”

“Nope. Amethyst threw me.”

Fey leaned over the balcony to see Boris entering the tavern with Amethyst and the glooms sitting in a now-waterless tank on his back. “What the…” she muttered.

“What?” Sirena asked, not positioned to be able to see over the balcony.

“The tank is empty,” said Fey.

“What? Where’s Squishy?” the mermaid demanded.

“Here,” said Magic.

Squishy levitated over the balcony railing and came to a rest float beside its owner. A minute later, Boris emerged onto the third floor of the tavern and made his way over to Fey.

“What did they do?” asked Sirena.

Amethyst squeaked. Before everyone was forced to rely on Fey’s inexact and completely-guessing translation, Magic said, “We went to the floating rays and fed them to Squishy.” (See Chapter 21 if you don’t remember.)

Fey and Leandriel nodded in understanding while everyone else was still confused. “What are floating rays?” Blade asked.

“They’re these monsters that look like stingrays and levitate instead of swimming. That’s really smart, Magic,” said Fey. She did not mention her childish grudge against the creatures for attacking her while she was distracted by chaos blood, but that was what prompted the next question. “How many did you kill?”

“We fed a hundred, then Squishy ate more after being able to air-float,” Magic answered.

Fey nodded, satisfied that she had gotten her revenge on the creatures by proxy.

“How’d you manage to catch them?” asked Blade. “Wouldn’t they stay out of reach?”

“Sleep Spore,” Magic answered cheerfully. “They all fell down.”

“Well, colour me impressed,” said Sirena. “We can go conquer the world now.”

Amethyst squeaked. (“What’s conquer?”)

Magic squeaked back. All of the Feypets listened with interest and visibly perked up.

Fey chuckled. “Yes, but you have to reinvest in infrastructure and government. You don’t get to keep all the tax revenue. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

Amethyst squeaked and Fey relented. “Okay, maybe one city.”

Amethyst nodded happily and settled on Fey’s shoulder.

“And you were trying to claim that your pets aren’t weird,” said Sirena.

“Well, they’re certainly no weirder than I am.”

“You hide it a lot better.”

“That’s just life experience.”

Blade was wearing a somewhat incredulous expression that said, ‘Fey hides her weirdness? Since when?’

Sirena grinned and tapped his nose with a finger. (*boop*) “You have no idea, boyo.”

Fey placidly ate her pie, demonstrating just how normal she could look.

Leandriel smiled, enjoying the layers of conversation that were full of good-natured wit and teasing. He found that he had something to contribute. “So which city would you like to conquer?”

“Hmm. That’s a good question.” Fey’s tone was 60% joking as she pondered. “Somewhere with good farmland, maybe? Or a mine? Or maybe a trade centre…”

“National capital,” Sirena chimed in. “Large population.”

“But people are so troublesome.”

“Weren’t your pets all excited about tax revenue?”

“Can’t we just have a few rich citizens rather than a lot of them?”

“I don’t think so.”

Fey sighed. “So troublesome. There are easier ways to earn money.”

“Yeah!” Magic agreed. “Killing monsters!”

Mimi smiled at the mushroom, perfectly in agreement. The smile slipped away into cool neutrality when she chanced to make eye contact with Leandriel.

When the meal was over and the group discussed returning to laser tag, the sniper politely thanked Leandriel for his help and stated that she had had enough practice.