The fish put up a mighty battle.

His new bamboo rod creaked angrily at the strain bending it into a tight arc. Kaldalis leaned his whole body against the fish and focused on the minigame. It was more challenging to attack in the darkness, since it was that much harder to pick out the direction his line was going into the water, but the fish’s pull was hard enough that he didn’t have that much trouble telling when it changed direction.

Kaldalis set aside thoughts of actually fighting the fish’s stamina down, and focused instead on holding his ground. He just had to wear the fish down, right? His job was to just lean back and not let the fucker go.

The only thing he’d ever seen that had a dangerously strong pull was the swordfish thing Aurigeant had hooked off the back of the ship on the way to the island.

He was pretty sure this fish had even that monster beat.

Only two things let him keep his feet: the furious lashing of his tail aiding his balance, and the two inches of mud that had clamped around his feet as soon as he’d fallen into the water. The rod didn’t whip back and forth like other fish, but just pushed from one side to the other.

The difficulty came from the raw power behind the fish’s pull.

It felt like he was fighting for an hour before the fish he’d hooked started to weaken. It was probably more like fifteen minutes, but that was a pretty long time to be engaged in such strenuous activity, especially compared to the fish he’d just been catching. As he reeled the last of the fight out of it, he took the opportunity to step out of the water and back on dry ground.

Just a few moments of fighting longer and he reeled in his prize. It was about three feet long, thick and obviously powerfully muscled. As soon as it was in his hands, he knew it was the deacon tetra he was looking for.

As Onirioago described, its scales were silvery. Even in the low light of what stars weren’t behind the clouds, it looked reflective and metallic. It would be very highly visible in even the lowest light. Compared to the other fish he’d caught, it was a striking difference. The others had been carefully colored to blend into murky waters and banks of algae. This was designed to stand out anywhere except a futuristic themed diner where everything was chrome.

On the front of its fishy face was the clear reason for its fearlessness. It’s large maw was full of serrated needle teeth, with two six-inch teeth protruding from its bottom jaw. They looked more like fangs than tusks to him, but he supposed they were coming out of the bottom jaw instead of the top. Combined with the muscular appearance, it was sort of like a fish-shaped chrome orc.

There was a little chime and his quest ticked up, completing the objective to acquire the fish. He expected the whole quest to change to delivering it to the expedition leader, but instead only the acquisition objective changed. The second objective to tell no one remained firmly in place.

“No gaming the system there, then,” he muttered. He looked up at the cloudy night sky, seeing fields of stars as the only definition of the inky blackness above him. “But I wonder. Did I catch the fish because I switched lures, or was the cloud related? Maybe they only come out to hunt in perfect darkness?”

As if in response to his question, the sky started to light up. A moment later, as fast as it had appeared, the clouds blocking the moonlight rolled away. He flinched from the sudden silvery brightness illuminating the world around him.

His first instinct was to look around fast, eyes wide. He almost expected to see the four-fingered syncoresi looming just outside of darkvision range, watching him with its beady little eyes. But the clearing was as empty as he remembered. The only difference was the figure on the far side of the lake. It seemed Dalgaard had sat up, either awakened by the return of the light, or that the sudden pitch blackness a few minutes earlier had startled them to wakefulness. Kaldalis gave a wave, and they made a familiar dismissive gesture. He supposed they were fine, then.

Kaldalis could afford to run out another cast for the sake of experimentation.

He had to recognize that there was the potential for the fish to be uncatchable now that he’d completed the quest, like the other quest fish he’d hunted. But it was just one cast. There was no harm in trying.

The metal minnow lure vanished into the water with an audible plunking sound. He let the lure sink to the bottom, and then started reeling it in. His first instinct was to go nice and slow to entice the tusk-toothed predator, but he remembered what had got the first one on the line. He sped up his reeling as much as he could, putting himself in the mindset of wanting to get the lure out of the water as fast as possible.

Within moments, there was a sharp tug, and then shortly after the yank of the bite. With that, the fight was on again.

Either fish within the same species had different levels individually and could be more or less difficult, or the light making his fishing line more visible was making it easier to track the deacon tetra’s moves. It still took several minutes to tire the bastard out and reel it in, though expecting its strength let him brace himself properly and avoid getting yanked into the lake again. He wasn’t entirely surprised by the deacon tetra he pulled out of the lake - he could tell that it was the same fish by its behaviors - but he still didn’t know what to do with this information. Despite having met his quest requirement, he could still catch the fish.

“But it’s not the darkness,” he said to himself as he popped the silvery fish into his inventory with the other. “It’s the lure. They didn’t like the spoon lure, but they love this fucking minnow thing.” He put his rod away and started to make his way back around the lake towards Dalgaard. “Now that that’s done, though, we can finally get back to town and call it a night.” He looked up at the sky and tried to gauge the time from the moons. “And not even midnight. We’ll be back in our beds by the reasonable hour of 3 AM. Real gamer hours.”

As he made his way through the knee-high grass, a warm wind picked up. It was nice to feel the air move, carrying the lingering humidity of the day away from his skin, but it filled the clearing with the sound of rustling foliage. Kaldalis had a moment of terror where this noise was cover for something to tear through the grass and leap on him. Dalgaard was still sitting up and watching his approach, so he couldn’t panic, but he took the opportunity to swap his fishing rod and his spear in his weapon slot.

When Kaldalis got within a few dozen feet of Dalgaard, he noticed something odd. It wasn’t Dalgaard sitting up and watching his approach. It was a woman. Well, maybe a woman. The first thing he noticed was long raven-black hair cascading over their left shoulder, with a face far paler than he remembered Dalgaard being. His panic subsided when he saw that Dalgaard was still laying on their side in the grass near this new person, still sleeping.

As he approached, he studied this intruder. The closer he got, the more sure he was that they were a woman. There were some vaguely androgynous features in their face, with thin lips and a square jawline, but they were largely very feminine. He guessed they were a healer, as they were wearing a cloth robe instead of armor, and they had to be an alpha player from the intricacy of the garment. It covered her up to the neck with silk in a red and yellow pattern.

Despite the concealing nature of the garment, it was very form-fitting, and as the distance between them decreased, he could see very clearly how it clung to every line of her body. It hugged close to the curve of her ample bosom, and stood out on her arms, defining the lines of her biceps. It flared out at the elbow, and the hand she had planted in the grass to support her was fully hidden under a pool of cloth. The pattern was vaguely like that of peacock feathers, and he imagined that in proper light - and not the silvery moonlight - the pattern and coloration would evoke a fiery phoenix.

“I’m sorry,” Kaldalis said when he was close enough to not have to shout. “Who are you?”

“You’re sorry?” she asked, tipping her head to one side. “Why?”

Kaldalis was thrown off-balance by the question. And then again when she looked him up and down. His skin tingled at her gaze, and he was reminded very much of how Onirioago looked at him when very clearly propositioning him with this fishing quest.

He didn’t appreciate it any more from this woman than he did from the expedition leader. He wasn’t a piece of meat.

Then again, if he could get her to say that his armor wasn’t bad looking in front of Dalgaard, that might teach them to badmouth his taste again.

“I guess it goes back to my father,” Kaldalis said at last. “His parenting style conditioned me to apologize as a default. But that doesn’t answer my question.” He stopped a good five feet away - well out of arm’s reach, but well within reach of a lunge of his spear - and crossed his arms. “What are you doing here?”

“So which question shall I answer?” she said, a slow smirk sliding across her face. She leaned back, and her raven hair ran over her shoulders like a liquid, revealing openings in her robe’s shoulders, where white flesh nearly the shade of plain paper poked out. “Do you want to know who I am, or what I’m doing here?”

“Both,” Kaldalis said, “One first, and then the other.” He matched her smirk. “I’ll let you pick the order.”

“Mmm,” she looked him up and down again. “I like the attitude. I could get used to you.” She patted a space in the grass next to herself, beckoning him over.

He arched an eyebrow at her, holding his ground.

“Or maybe not,” she said, pursing her lips. “Fine then. If you need to call me something, call me Ara. And I’m just sitting here in this beautiful little clearing talking to a handsome young man.”

“Okay, so how did you come to be here, then? This is pretty far out from anywhere safe. Why are you here? And why are you just sitting creepily over my friend?”

“Ah-ah-ah.” She held up a single finger, and the sleeve of her robe fell all the way down to her elbow. Despite the visible definition of her bicep, her forearm looked delicate and smooth. Even dainty. “You asked two questions again now, and I haven’t even got one.”

“You asked why I said I was sorry,” Kaldalis corrected her. “That’s one.”

“Fine.” She pouted, crossing her arms, the motion throwing her sleeve back over her hand. “Then you’ve had two questions while I’ve had one. That’s still not fair, is it?”

“It is when the questions are personal in nature,” Kaldalis admitted, “but not when they involve the safety of my friends. Why are you sitting so close to them like that?”

“I came upon him in the darkness,” Ara said with a huff. “I was just making sure he was okay.”

“They,” Kaldalis corrected before continuing with a sigh, “okay, fine. But if you want to talk, I’d rather not risk a knee-jerk reaction if they wake up and we’re leaning over them like ghouls. Let’s take a little walk and we can have a private chat without risking a stab wound.”

“Mmm,” her pout turned into an excited grin. “I like the way you think. We should seek some privacy, shouldn’t we?”

“Not, like…” Kaldalis groaned at his own fat mouth. After a hesitation, he decided to just take the small win. It wasn’t like she was just going to pounce on him in an act of open assault, right? “Fine. Okay. Over here then.”

Kaldalis turned and led her a little ways back the way he’d come. He was careful to stop within thirty feet of Dalgaard, so that if a cloud passed in front of the moon again, he would still be able to keep an eye on them, in case they happened to attract another random healer. From here he would be able to see them coming and not be surprised.

He’d have to be prepared in case Dalgaard was somehow a literal chick magnet.