Excitement and eagerness coursed through my body as I walked out from the city proper and into the cleared space between the walls and the forest beyond. The road leading up to the gates extended ahead of me, cutting a path through the trees and leaving a clear space wide enough for two wagons to pass each other. The cobbled streets ended with the wall and going forward the road was made of merely hard packed dirt with signs of shallow ruts where wagons constantly traveled over the well-used trail.

Looking at my mini map, the arrow pointing me towards the location I needed to be aimed off to the north away from the main road itself. That seemed fine by me as I wanted to cut into the forest anyway and see what mobs I would be able to find in order to gain some more experience. The combination of realism and standard game mechanics made me believe I would be able to run into some basic low level creatures that I would be able to test myself against.

Curious as to exactly where I had to go, I focused on my mini map and expanded the small box into a full-sized map in order to see both myself and my destination. A red dot showed the location of the cave I needed to enter, and judging by the size of the city behind me, it was roughly four miles away and well off of the beaten path.

I squeezed the lump of metal in my hand and willed it into a short sword shape, the item quickly complying to my desires, and started in a direct line into the woods following the arrow on my now small again mini map.

Once in the trees, I had to slow my pace slightly in order to keep an eye on my surroundings. I didn’t want to be caught off guard by anything if I could help it, and watching out for threats in this new environment seemed to be the prudent thing to do. Sunlight filtered down through the canopy of branches above to give plenty of dappled light to see by, but also left a good bit in shadows where mobs could possibly hide.

Everything around me looked and smelled so real that it was hard to concentrate on the task at hand, my mind overwhelmed at the realistic nature of the game I knew I was playing. Despite trying to focus on my environment, I still almost missed the movement off to my left when I was about a hundred yards into the woods.

Thankfully the trees weren’t densely packed around me and there was little in the way of underbrush over the carpet of twigs, leaves and grass. All of that combined allowed me to catch sight of the mob as it walked between the trunks of trees with yellow eyes turned in my direction. It appeared to be a small wolf with a dappled gray and black coat which seemed to be wandering around alone. That struck me as a little odd, as from all I had heard of in real life said wolves hunted in packs. A little nervous about the prospect of having to fight several mobs at once, I quickly focused on the beast and tried to use my inspect skill on it.

Young Forest Wolf

Level: 2

HP: 100

A species of wolf where young adolescents are sent out on their own in order to prove their worth to the pack. Those that prove their might by felling prey then return to the pack and take up their place with the rest.

A smile crossed my face at the information window. It seemed like the AI had thought of everything when they designed the mobs around here. I guessed that when I got deeper into the woods I would run across packs of the creatures at a higher level, but around the edges I would be able to pick off individuals without the threat of being overwhelmed. The prospects of trying out real combat drove off any misgivings I had about dying, and I needed to get stronger anyway. The only way to do that would be to kill mobs and gain experience.

With those thoughts in mind, I readied my one handed sword and faced the wolf, stepping carefully towards the creature. A low growl sounded from the beast as I got within twenty paces, and suddenly it dashed towards me, mouth opening to reveal a set of sharp teeth which looked quite capable of ripping me open easily.

The sheer speed of its movements shocked me, but I reacted quickly enough and brought my sword around in a horizontal slash at it when it got close enough. As fast as I reacted, however, the wolf was still quicker. With a savage snarl, the beast caught my sword on its side as it sank its teeth into my left shoulder. The force of the charge backed by the weight of the animal knocked me backwards as a red health bar appeared over its head in my vision. 5% of my own HP fell away from the wolf’s attack, but 15% of the mob’s health drained away from my strike.

Hanging onto my shoulder, it shook its head which caused some more of my HP to bleed away slowly. The pain of it was shocking! While not quite as sharp as if it were real life, the translation of pain from the game was still quite intense and was enough to make me pause for a moment. The wolf took advantage of the lapse and released my shoulder, head rearing back slightly to position itself to dive at my throat.

Reflex was probably the only thing that saved me from receiving critical damage as I brought my arm up to catch the jaws on my new bracers. The pressure was still quite painful, but without the actual tearing feeling of the teeth biting into my flesh, it was tolerable. I had little room to swing a sword properly while stuck on my back, so I willed my weapon to change shape again into a dagger and plunged it into the thick fur of the wolf’s neck as hard as I could.

50% of the health bar drained away with that one attack as I landed a critical hit, the wolf releasing my arm with a pained yelp as it leapt away from me in shock. I quickly jumped to my feet again and shifted my dagger into a sword once more with a glance at my own HP. At 90% still, I knew this fight would be mine, but damn if it didn’t feel like it was a lot closer when I considered the amount of pain from those attacks I received.

The wolf only had 35% of its health left and growled at me as it circled, looking for a chance to lunge at me once more. I turned with it, keeping my sword up between me and the beast as I tried to time myself to its movements. As soon as it lifted a paw to take another step, I took the initiative and lunged forward with a swing of my weapon.

With a nimble dodge away, the creature quickly changed directed and leapt for me once again when I was over extended from the miss with my blade. Pure luck let me spin my body into a roll in the direction of my momentum, and I felt the passage of the wolf above me as it jumped straight over me in a clean miss. Ha! Like that would work every time…

I spun around and caught sight of the wolf crouching down for another leap at me. A quick thought and a bit of focus, and I thrust my weapon forward as it shifted form again just as the wolf left the ground. My weapon just finished changing into a one handed spear as the point impacted the wolf’s chest, piercing the animal deeply with the force of its own momentum.

Apparently the game took such measures into account, for the remaining HP fell away from the health bar over the wolfs head and its eyes dulled in death, blood leaking from the wounds I inflicted onto the forest floor as I pulled my weapon free of the dead animal.

My breath came in quick gasps from the adrenaline pumping through my body after the fight. It all felt so real, the mild panic in my motions during the battle reflecting the complete lack of skill in fighting as I thought over what happened. I resolved to throw myself into more battles quickly to overcome such reactions.

This game was entirely too realistic in design and in order to excel I needed to overcome the inhibitions of my mind during these fights. Even despite knowing it was a game I still acted as if my very life were on the line, and while that might prove beneficial at some point, I needed to keep a clear head in order to ensure I didn’t die and suffer the loss of my gear as well as the death debuff.

With a deep and calming breath, I reached down and touched the dead body with my left hand to loot it, receiving a wolf hide and chunk of wolf meat as my prize from the duel. Not bad, as I didn’t expect to find anything of real value on the corpse of an animal and the hide could go to the leatherworker in town if I got some more of them. I had also gotten 50 experience from the fight, but there was no indication of how much I needed in order to level up.

After looting the corpse, the body seemed to just fade away to leave a small pool of blood on the ground where it once lay. Convenient, that. I stood up again and looked around me, spotting another wolf a good distance away as it looked at me with those yellow eyes. Now that I was out of combat, my HP was steadily climbing higher and I noticed that my energy had taken a much more severe dip than I anticipated. While it too was climbing again, I noted that it had fallen to about 60% over the course of that short fight and set a mental reminder to keep an eye on it in future encounters.

One thing was certain, though. I needed to come up with a better strategy to use against these wolves if I wanted to be efficient in how I dealt with them. The pain of their attacks made me flinch, and I doubted that would be easy to overcome as the sensations just felt all too real here. Maybe if I had gotten into more fights in real life and learned to deal with such things there it would have made a difference, but that wasn’t the case with me. That left me with only one real option. Tactics.

The weapon I had at my disposal gave me several possible options to use when confronting these wolves, but the only way I could make sure it worked was by testing myself against them over and over. With a plan in mind, I grinned to myself and started walking towards the next wolf as my bars both finished filling up to full once more.

My plan was simple. Close combat with these mobs was a terrible idea when it came down to it, so I decided to use what I learned from the first encounter to my advantage and formed my weapon into a two handed spear to start. Shifting it into a larger weapon took some more concentration, but was easily managed without a problem, especially while out of combat.

As I approached the next wolf, I noted that this one was also level 2 with the same colorings and HP which promised a similar encounter compared to the first one. That was a good thing since I wanted to get used to combat here and varying the details too much at once would never allow me any measure of comfort with the actions.

Like the first time, the wolf growled and sprang into action as soon as I got within twenty paces of it, which seemed to be its aggro range. Unlike the first fight though, I was ready for the sudden burst of speed it displayed as it charged with a snarl and my long spear was held ready as I watched the movement of the paws. All four feet left the ground for a short time during the run, and I took advantage of the momentary lack of dodge ability to thrust my weapon forward.

To my utter surprise, the tip of the spear pierced the wolf’s chest easily, dealing a huge amount of damage and reducing the total life of the animal to 25%! The force of the impact drove me backwards some, but I was more or less ready for it and kept my balance well enough as I twisted my body to throw the wolf off of the spear. With a single thought and force of my will, the spear tip changed shape to a halberd with a crescent axe head which I lifted and swiftly dropped onto the neck of the prone wolf.

And just like that I killed my second wolf. It was surprisingly easy once I had seen how the creatures reacted, but at the same time, these were the simplest of mobs that I would be encountering within the game so it was no real shock that they were easy to kill. No matter, it was another 50 experience in the bank.

The red arrow directed me farther into the forest and away from both the main road and the city, so I followed a winding course with the cavern as my destination killing more wolves along the way as I encountered them. I was nearly at my destination and had just finished killing my eighth wolf when a couple messages flashed into being within my view.

Congratulations!

You have gained a level!

Current level: 2

You have 5 stat points available to distribute.

Warning! If you die before assigning your points, they will be lost!

Congratulations!

You have learned the skill: Polearm Mastery

Skill level: 1 (1%)

Continuous use of polearms has deepened your understanding of their function and versatility.

+1% damage with polearms

+1% attack speed with polearms

Increase the skill level for additional bonuses.

I grinned to myself at the screens and waved them away in order to pull up my character screen and assign my free points. It was a tough call on where to place them at the moment as I didn’t really have any idea on how I wanted to develop my character now that I was in the game. So much would depend on what kind of Fairy I got that until I had one, there would be no real specialty I could focus on.

Those thoughts in mind, I decided to put two more points into Fort, and one each into Str, Agi and Dex. Better to keep myself an all arounder for the time being than to start focusing in on the wrong things, and melee weapons were the only thing I had going for me at the moment. Happy with my choices, I looked over my overall stats again with another smile.

Name: Calamity

Player Level: 2

Stat Level: 13

Exp: 500

Title

None

Fame

0

Armor

9

HP

220/220

Energy

195/220

MP

210/210

Str

21

Fort

22

Dex

21

Int

21

Agi

21

Will

20

I hadn’t forgotten about my herbalism skill either during my travels, and had picked a number of common quality plants which sat in my inventory and added a couple percentage points to my skill as well. I had 13 herbs picked and each one added 5% to my skill total, which seemed a bit much but I figured must have diminishing returns at higher skill levels. I focused on my skill list next to check that over again.

Skill List:

Polearm Mastery: lvl 1 (1%)

Inspect: lvl 1 (54%)

Advanced Herbalism: lvl 1 (65%)

Not much so far, but according to the clock on my UI I had only been playing for a little over an hour in the main game world now. Over all I was happy with my current progress, and I was getting more and more used to the combat against the simple mobs of starter level. Yeah, my stat level had a lot to do with how easy the fights were, but I also took into account that most players with a casual account would be grouping up in order to power through the starting zones. As a solo player, I needed to take every advantage I could get!

Closing the windows, I looked around in search of the next target but didn’t see any wolves nearby. My mini map showed that the cave wasn’t very far away now, maybe two hundred yards, so I gave up hunting more mobs and started walking towards the marker with renewed vigor.

I approached the cave cautiously, wary for any dangers that might be lurking near such an opening. I wouldn’t put it past the AI to have something charge out of the darkness and lash out at me, or even ambush me from outside as my attention was focused on the cave itself. Judging on how much damage I had taken from the level 2 wolves so far, I figured I would be safe enough with whatever happened though so I didn’t hesitate to approach.

The cave was a simple opening in a jut of stone that poked up from the ground, the path within leading down sharply for a dozen feet or so until the light from outside couldn’t penetrate any farther. That was going to be a problem if there wasn’t any kind of light source inside I could use. I didn’t have any torches in my inventory, nor any way to light them even if I did.

There was no way the game wouldn’t account for new players not having a light source though, so figuring I would find something useful inside to use, I carefully moved into the opening and down the slope. The stone ramp gave just enough traction that I didn’t slide, but it felt like any misstep could end up having that happen anyway if I didn’t place my feet in a smart fashion.

With not enough room to use my previous strategy, I shifted my weapon back into a one handed sword just before I ran out of light from the outside. I paused a few more steps in to allow my eyes to adjust and caught a soft glow ahead of me that outlined the walls well enough to navigate, just as I suspected.

Still traveling at a downwards angle, I saw that the light ahead was coming from an opening into a hallway which appeared to be more or less flat so that I wouldn’t be descending any more. The closer I got to the level portion of the passage, the brighter the light seemed until I was able to comfortably see normally as I set my feet on even ground again.

The light itself turned out to be plants of some strange variety with pods emitting the glow I saw. Cave moss happened to be growing along the walls from which the pods themselves grew out of, each pod roughly the size of my fist and the large quantity of them being the only reason that there was enough light to see by, as each pod only seemed to give off a moderate amount of light individually.

Walking down the passage, I looked farther ahead and saw the tunnel curved off to the right with the glowing plants easily lighting the way forward for me as I moved. I wanted to collect one to see if it had any alchemical properties, but as the moss all seemed connected I left that for on my way out just in case any tampering made the glowing stop and plunge me into darkness. It would be just my luck to screw up something useful because I was greedy and while I would be taking one to examine, it was best to wait for the time being.

My mini map showed me absolutely nothing, leading me to believe that the map I was given didn’t have any exact details as to what was down here. What got me curious though was why it wasn’t updating as I went along. I put those thoughts aside as I rounded the bend in the passage and saw something amazing open up before me.

An underground cavern spread out at the end of the turn in the passage, the walls covered in the moss with glow bulbs scattered all over to illuminate the entire place. The ceiling was a good fifteen feet high here and against the far wall a stream of water ran down the rocks to collect in a deep looking pool around which gathered dozens of Fairies.

All of the small figures seemed to notice me at the same time as I watched the throng of heads turn in my direction in unison before the soft sound of many wings reached my ears, the Fairies scattering to little holes dotting the walls. Most likely their homes in this secret oasis. The floor here was still smooth, but sloped slightly down to the edge of the water where it dropped sharply to for a well to which I walked carefully.

The heads of a few curious Fairies peeked out from the small cubbies in which they hid, but none dared come out into the open as I dropped down to one knee to look into the water. There was something down there, just at the edge of my sight which I couldn’t quite make out. The water was crystal clear and I was able to see where a dark shape rested within the depths of the pool.

Curious to see if a crazy idea would work, I lifted my weapon and tried to imagine a net or a catch pole, something that could reach down into those depths and attempt to retrieve whatever it was that sat down there. Nothing happened to the shifting weapon though, leaving me to assume that it didn’t count as a basic weapon in the games coding.

I almost let the matter go, figuring that it was beyond me when I noticed a slight shimmer from the thing down there. The sound of several gasps was heard coming from the walls as a light flashed dimly once again in a fantastical pattern that captured nearly all of my attention. I was aware enough to catch a glimpse of a few of the wild Fairies emerging from their hiding places and flying up high overhead, outside of my reach, as they looked down upon the water right along with me.

Deep down in the water, motes of light flared up and collected, swirling around an oval shape that was revealed by the dancing illumination. Faster and faster they spun, condensing tighter and sinking into what looked like a stone until all of the light within the depths sank into the object which seemed to shudder once.

A rumble filled the air suddenly, which caused a panic in the Fairies flying around. All of them once again darted to the walls, hiding away as I looked to the source of the sound. A slab of stone quickly settled down to block off the entrance to the cavern, making me curse out loud at what it might mean. A door locking you into a room like this usually meant one thing… Boss fight.

There was plenty of room here in this cavern for me to wield a two handed weapon, so I quickly shifted mine into a spear, hoping I would be able to use the same tactics that had been working for me thus far on whatever was coming. The trickling sound of water falling down the wall stopped and drew my attention to where it had once poured into the chamber, and I saw a pair of glowing red eyes at the hole where the waterfall originated.

Filling the space that had previously allowed the water to drain into the room, the body of a long snake squeezed through and pushed its way into the chamber. Well fuck me sideways… The thing looked huge as it continued to work its way out into the open. Never one to let an opportunity pass me by however, I quickly used inspect on it to see what I was dealing with.

Grotto Guardian

Level: ?

HP: ?

MP: ?

A creature who has lived in the Fairy Grotto for many years and sees all of the winged beings as its personal food supply. The Guardian is very territorial and will try to kill anything that comes in to disrupt the natural order of the Grotto.

Well, so much for anything resembling a lucky break! The creature was still trying to get its mass into the room, but was well within striking range of my spear so I took advantage of its distraction to jab the point of my weapon at the head which was creeping closer to the ground by the moment.

The spear point sank into the flesh of the snake just behind one eye which revealed the health bar above its head, now missing 2% of its HP. I cursed at how little damage it took and pulled my weapon back again, letting the momentum to drawing back slide the haft of the spear through my hands and bringing the tip closer.

I ripped a vial of the spider venom from a quick access slot on my belt and poured it over the spear, dropping the now empty vial before resetting a proper grip on the weapon again. I didn’t want to have to use one of those precious vials yet, but it seemed like it was now or never. If I died, they would be lost to me anyway.

The Guardian was almost fully into the room now, if the slowly narrowing portions of the body sliding through the hole was any indication, so I once again went on the offensive before it got the chance to settle in and try to strike at me. A few more stabs at a head the size of one of the wolves I fought earlier resulted in another 8% of its HP being whittled away before the body finally settled fully before me.

A hiss echoed in the cavern as the snake coiled up and glared at me for the little damage I caused to it so far, apparent indignation flaring in those ruby red eyes. Its scales had a dark gray and green pattern to them, but that was all I noticed as it suddenly shot forward to bite at me.

A knee-jerk reaction and pure luck saved my ass once more as I twisted my spear just enough so that the haft turned the creatures head aside, missing me by mere inches as it impacted the stone floor to my right. Not wanting to let it strike without a counter, I willed the spear to shift to a halberd and stepped to my left, dropping the axe head down onto the back of its body, dealing a much larger chunk of damage to it than my spear had.

Understanding hit me then that the snake was resistant to piercing damage, which mostly just screwed me over as I had become familiar with using the spear up till now. With the adrenaline pumping in my body, I completely forgot about boss mechanics in the heat of the moment and missed the tail as it hit me square in the chest and sent me onto my back a half dozen paces away, a quarter of my HP missing in that one strike.

I popped and drank a potion with my left hand as I rose to my feet again, the snake coiling to strike once more as we both returned to equal footing. Its health bar looked to be at about 80% or so, mine a bit higher and climbing slowly back to full as the regen portion of the potion ticked away.

Hissing in fury and pain, the snake stared at the cause of its frustrations as I bent my legs slightly, readying myself for the next attack. I didn’t want to be the first one to move, as that would probably leave me wide open to the boss who was obviously much faster than I was. Instead, I waited and watched. The powerful muscles beneath the surface of the Guardians scaled hide flexed and shifted slowly as it coiled tighter, readying itself to spring at me again.

Still I waited… I had to time this perfectly if I had any chance of winning the fight. There! I saw a savage bunching of muscles signaling the start of its lunge and leapt to my left as fast as I could while I turned and swung the blade of my halberd down on where I was just standing. A resounding crash came from the snake’s head as its jaws snapped closed on empty air, followed by another as my halberd drove into the top of its head to cause the bottom jaw to smack onto the stone floor.

Trying to predict the follow up tail attack, I away from where I stood and looked over to where the attack should be coming from, but saw nothing. The whole snake had stopped moving and I grinned as I suspected the venom had paralyzed the Guardian for 5 seconds. I had wasted two of them to dodge an imaginary attack, but used the rest to get a pair of axe strikes in with my halberd, shaving off more health and leaving the snake at 50% HP.

My own HP had just finished filling when the delayed tail attack came right as I was trying to get in one last strike. My hit connected, but I was once more sent tumbling as my HP bar fell to 75% once again.

A second potion was consumed as I stood up, but then I barely had time to dive away from my position as the beast had immediately struck again. I had no time to counter attack and continued to jump around, avoiding the follow up this time as the tip of the tail made a whip-like crack in the air right beside me.

Breathing heavily, I looked at my energy gauge and cursed. The green bar was down to a quarter with all of the jumping and dodging I was doing, and because I was in combat, the refill rate was abysmally slow. Thankfully the boss was down to 40% HP and was once again studying me from its coiled position critically.

I was completely fine with the boss taking its time, as every second I wasn’t making crazy attacks or dodges allowed my energy bar to fill up that much more. I didn’t get to wait too long though, as the boss decided that it wanted to end this sooner rather than later. Once again, I caught the harsh flexing of muscle and jumped to the right this time, slashing down with the blade of my weapon and catching the top of its head again.

There was no time for any kind of happy feeling, or jumping away, or anything else as I immediately felt the tail snap against my side to send me on another trip across the rock floor, my HP down to 65% as pain coursed through my battered body. I couldn’t even drink my last potion yet, as that would negate the remaining ten seconds of regen time I still had on my last one.

Another curse flew from my mouth as I swiftly got back to my feet. My energy was dangerously low now, only 15% of the bar was full while the snake still had 30% of its HP left. I had just enough time and energy left for one more desperate ploy. The AI had seen me dodge left and right once each, but it hadn’t seen me consciously stand still and counter the lunging strike yet. My last hope was that I would be able to fool the boss into missing me with the follow up tail attack.

The AI in control of this boss was definitely living up to my expectations, all things considered. It used a set attack pattern, but was able to shift the patterns enough to make it so that the fight was more realistic! In most every game I had played before, the follow up attack would always be at the same time and place, not following the player around as accurately as this one did and even striking almost at the same time as the primary attack. The sheer challenge of this fight was able to bring a wide smile of enjoyment to my face, despite the pain my body was still feeling as my HP crossed above the 70% mark.

Right, time for a last-ditch gamble. All or nothing in the next attack, as I didn’t have the energy remaining to draw this out any longer. Looking back at when I leveled up, I wished I had put all of the points into Fort so I could possibly have had enough energy to finish this conventionally. Oh well, hind sight is twenty-twenty as the saying goes.

Following the same patterns as I had the last couple times, I set my body as if I was going to dodge aside and counter again as the snake coiled tightly to lash out at me one more time. In my head, I brought up a new weapon design, but held back on pushing my focus onto the weapon in my hands. This would come down to timing again, and I couldn’t mess it up if it was to work. Even if it did work, I figured I would still have a fifty-fifty shot of surviving.

I waited patiently, carefully watching the Guardian as it in turn watched me. Both of us tried to judge where and when the other would strike, and I could see the light of intelligence in the creature’s eyes. Then it happened.

As soon as I saw the snake begin it’s strike, I twitched my body to the left slightly, hoping to throw off the aim of its second attack, then dropped immediately to a knee as I forced my weapon to change shape into a boar spear. A long, straight spear with a heavy cross guard at the base of a foot and a half long flat blade, the weapon was designed to stop a charging enraged animal dead in its tracks when the butt of the weapon was planted against the ground and braced by a body. With the mouth of the snake wide open, it couldn’t quite see me when I dropped low and missed the point where I did just what the spear was designed for.

The blade punched up into the roof of the boss’ mouth and pierced its head, the shaft bending as the force of the snake’s own attack was stopped by the braced cross guard. A crack in the air signaled that the tail attack would have taken me out before I could counter if I had followed through with the jump to my left. Then everything went still. I was out of energy, and the HP bar over the boss’s head drained away as the critical strike damage I had dealt finished the fight off.

Warning!

You are out of energy. For one minute, you are unable to perform any actions or move.

It was the longest sixty seconds of my life as I was frozen in place unable to do anything at all. If my plan had gone sideways in any way, I would be watching as the boss finished me off at its own leisure.

By the time my forced paralysis was through, my energy bar had refilled to 25% and my HP was up to 85% due to natural regen. Feeling returned to my limbs almost all at once, and I twisted my spear to the side in order to not get crushed by the head falling on me. Thankfully, when I was unable to move my body had kept the spear braced well enough so that didn’t happen when I couldn’t avoid it.

Getting to my feet, I looked around at all the Fairies who were poking their heads out of the hiding places dotting the walls around me and smiled at the shocked expressions still plastered on their faces. I hadn’t noticed how human-like the little beings were until just then, and a laugh bubbled up out of me at the sight.

They were still afraid of the snake it seemed, for even with the boss dead, none of them emerged fully from their positions. I bent down and looted the snake, getting a Grotto Guardian Hide, Snake Fang, and a Glowing Ruby Eye. The last item was listed as a Quest item, and was what Vermund had tasked me with retrieving even though it said nowhere in the log book that I had to kill a fucking boss monster to do it! Damn AI and their damn quest systems…

As soon as I took the spoils of my efforts, the body faded away without even leaving a pool of blood this time, the floor perfectly clear and clean as if such stains didn’t belong in a refuge for the tiny beings who lived here. Behind me, the stone rumbled again as the door opened up to allow me passage out of the cavern now that the boss had been looted and vanished.

A flash of shimmering light caught my attention from the pool of water, and I turned to see the glowing oval object that was at the bottom of the water now floating in the surface at the edge of the small pond. I walked over and picked it up, studying the item that felt like stone in my hand. Now that I was out of combat, an icon flashed at the bottom of my UI showing I had missed messages, and a new window popped up in front of me.

Congratulations!

You have completed a hidden quest!

Fairies Plight

Kill the monster that has plagued the Fairies in the Grotto of Tranquility. For years, the Fairies have lived in fear of the beast that considered them food, it has now fallen upon you to defeat this menace and allow the Fairies to live in peace once more.

Quest Complete!

Rewards: 500 experience, Unique Fairy Contract

Warning! This is a one-time Unique quest. While the boss will respawn in time, these rewards will not appear again.