Post by PonySoarkles 9:34 AM April 17th, 20XX

So, my grandma and grandpa have decided that they’re no longer gonna stay on earth because they can live better lives, retired in the PPVS. It will also save them and my family a lot of money. But that means that we can only see them in the sim. They don't look like themselves in there. It’s weird. They’re all young and good looking with unfamiliar faces.

The spider-shaped fire elementals dropped down and, since I had my aura of redirection active, they aimed for my bonded.

“Hey, ignore the adds and focus on attacking the boss. They’ll leave once he’s dead.” Probably.

I shot another Stinging Words Arrow at the rat king before looking back at Mia. Her face paled, her eyes widened with soul-shaking terror, then she dropped.

“Shit!” I said, using the curse to fuel my next arrow. When this was over we would have one long conversation about not keeping important secrets from each other.

The spiders reached her prone form. I release the arrow just before I dodged an attack from the boss who infuriatingly ignored my aura. Fortunately, Mia’s health wasn’t going down.

“Wait, what?” I turned back to the rat king and focused on him. I dodged and dunked and fired. And every now and then I’d turn to see if she’d taken any damage but the spiders couldn’t hurt her, and from how they attacked harder and faster with each passing second, it angered them beyond all reason.

The rat king once again lifted his staff and chanted. Shadows around the room seemed to dance and bulge. The glow-quarts brightened and shadows grew and deepened, then they raced towards us. One of the shadows pulled at my sleeve as I stepped to the side. The rat king threw a fist at my head and I dunked then turned. Something bit my leg. Pain held me still for just a second. The king attempted to use that to his advantage by bashing my skull in with his staff but I kicked the shadow biter off me and jumped to a convenient area lit by the quartz’s intense glow. From the quartz I hoped would protect me, death beams once again rained down. I almost cried with frustration.

Whatever this biting shadow plus death beam spell was, there was no way Mia would be able to survive it without constant heals, and while I was a champion healer, I wasn’t, ‘dodge hundreds of death-beams while distantly healing an ally,’ good. So I focused on saving myself first since I was our only hope to end this now. I just hoped the spiders wouldn’t swarm me when she did go to respawn.

As I dodged left, the boss used his staff to fire off a beam himself. It was so unexpected that it bit into my chest. My breath left me and a hole had burned itself into my favorite robes. With a grimace, I pinched my arm, and cast “Healing Pinch.” My wound closed but the hole in my clothes remained. If it didn’t disappear later I’d find some way to raise this asshole from the dead and kill him again!

I dodged another shadow from my left and another beam came at me from the boss. With all the twisting and turning I had to do to avoid taking damage, I couldn’t attack the king.

When the shadows and beams finally ended, I glanced Mia’s way and nearly stumbled. Because she was alive. Her health was low, but she’d survived. Several holes had burnt into her but every time the spiders attacked, she healed a little as if absorbing the fire.

I laughed at the irony, using the sound to fill my Stinging Words Arrow before I released and caught the rat king in its chest.

The Passivity Precept was good. It gave someone with a debilitating phobia of fire the natural ability to be healed by it. I wasn’t sure if it was a boon or torture. Either way, it was time to finish this.

I spoke words of death and funneled them into my next shot. I aimed for the rat king’s face and released. Thunk. The giant rat lunged at the last second and I hit his abs instead. So I spoke words of pain and suffering and sent them flying with another arrow towards his heart. He twisted and my arrow hit his bicep, but I could tell that he’d slowed. I yelled words of ending and sent them into his eye. Thunk. Roar! He stumbled back until he reached his throne. As he sat there dying, I spoke words of finality and shot one last arrow. It hit the king’s open maw, traveled through his skull then pinned him to the chair.

I spun to face the last threat in the room. The fire elemental spiders, stilled, then bowed with their thin flame legs. As if they had no cares, they crawled up a nearby crystal pillar.

Congratulations! Your party has finished exterminating all the rats inside the dungeon and earned 1000 bonus XP! Too Bad, So Sad! As a Free Range Prisoner, you are set to accept 0% of this XP. Try again when you’re released! Congratulations! Due to your constant creative use of dodge, your skill has leveled to 77!

I clenched my fists. Soon. I’d be released soon.

The rat king’s corpse lit on fire and disintegrated leaving a swirling wine-colored portal. Items flew into our group inventory.

I did a quick search for treasure and found a chest behind the throne with some passive marks, a few loose sapphires and a full set of leather assassin’s armor. I threw them all into our team inventory. An evil grin split my face knowing that the Ravenborn clan would receive none of it.

Now that our mission was complete, we needed to leave the dungeon. I walked up to Mia and paused. She slept with a bloodless face and sweat-drenched clothes. I used my foot to rock her shoulder.

“Wake up. It’s safe.”

“Ahhhhhh!” She sat up, arms flailing.

That was a delayed reaction if I’d ever seen one. I crouched down and stared into her eyes. Her face turned bright red. Well, if she was going to be that embarrassed, I could let her off... for now.

“We need to go and prepare for our next mission. But the most important thing is to have a shower right away. We can’t afford any Charisma debuffs.”

She nodded and I held out my hand. Her grime-covered one took mine and I helped her up. Well, it was invisible grime, but I could almost feel it decreasing my Charisma score.

After gesturing to the portal I sauntered over to it. I also grabbed a hand towel and water skin from my inventory and used them to nonchalantly wash the grime off my hands.

“Really, Lore? If it was going to upset you that much, you shouldn’t have helped me up.”

I threw my supplies in my inventory and raised a brow at her. “I had planned to yell at you later for keeping important secrets, but I can do it now if you’d prefer.”

Her face turned red, and then she marched past me while unintentionally flaunting her well-rounded ass. She disappeared into the portal. So cute... I mean, infuriating. Absolutely not adorable.