Coming home with slightly sore feet and several shopping bags, Arwyn slipped off her shoes and collapsed (melodramatically), bags and all, on her couch. She and Leah had spent a pleasant afternoon exploring various clothing and shoe stores. The majority of Arwyn's purchases consisted of practical, comfortable, and professional clothing (with the rule of thumb for clothing to be considered “practical” being that she could kick people in the head while wearing it), along with a few pieces of fancy, stylish clothing that she liked, but rarely had the occasion to wear. After dinner at a restaurant with her friend, Arwyn had come home relaxed and pleasantly tired.
Arwyn could hear the seductive voice of Fantasia calling out to her. “Come rest on this comfortable recliner,” it coaxed. (She tends to have a lot of conversations with inanimate objects. Just go with it.) Her gaze was dragged to the game helmet in the next room over as if by gravity. “Come,” it whispered.
No, she thought, sounding unconvincing even in her own head, I have to stay off until bedtime.
“But why?” asked the game helmet, a pout in its voice. “Don't you want to play with me?” (Is anybody getting creeped out? It was supposed to be funny, but it ended up getting creepy instead.)
Resolutely, Arwyn turned away from the games room (“Come back,” whispered the game). Just to have something to do, she sat at her desk and turned on her laptop. Fantasia still foremost on her mind, Arwyn ended up spending several hours watching educational videos about swordfighting on the Internet. Although she was sure that this was a bad way to learn proper technique, she memorized a few movements that she thought she could copy reasonably well.
Arwyn also came across several rants about the inaccuracies of swords as depicted in fantasy novels (which made her sad, because they were generally the coolest aspects of swords as depicted in fantasy novels); for instance, having a longsword in a back sheath is impractical because human arms are not long enough to draw it from that angle.
After the videos went rather off-topic (“related videos” my behind), Arwyn closed her laptop to send it into hibernation mode. She performed her nightly rituals of preparing for bed, even putting away her newly-purchased clothing. (Usually, it stayed in the bag until she felt like wearing it for the first time.) She peeked at the clock: 11:00 p.m. It was still early for her to go to sleep, but reasonable by humanity's standards. She gave in to her growing addiction and slid on the game helmet.
◊◊◊
A disembodied female voice. “Scanning. Player detected. Welcome back to Fantasia, Fey E'lan.”
Fey blinked as she materialized in the same place where she had logged out. Pets flashed into existence as well, and she petted them in greeting (haha, she petted her pets; this is like the notice board all over again).
Fey took a moment to recall what she had been doing before logging out. Let's see... Blade apologized, and I was unnecessarily cryptic with him for fun, and before that... Ah yes, I was training Osmosis. (The fact that it took her several seconds to remember this was sad, considering the flask of water she still held.) Plonking the slime back into the water, Fey led the way back to the village, looking for something to do while her pet trained her skill.
At the notice board, Fey looked for requests relating to monsters around her level. Emboldened by the fact that she had yet to come to serious injury (surprise attacks by level 99 angels notwithstanding), she dared go after monsters slightly higher than her own level 14. A posting caught her eye: Dubbles and Trubbles. The description read:
...Oh crap, was all Fey had time to think before every dubble in the area attacked.
It was a nightmare of a dodgeball game, thirty against one, where headshots were allowed and you could not go 'out' after being hit. Fey quickly herded her pets into the shelter between her legs and the tree behind her, taking all the damage herself rather than risk her weaker, unarmoured companions. She (mostly) managed to protect her head, but impacts slammed into every other part of her body; the combined slapping sounds were deafening.
Fey was overwhelmed, but after a minute or two of the assault, realized that her health bar had stabilized at around 150/225. The creators of Fantasia had quickly discovered during the initial stages of testing that players disliked the feeling of dying in virtual reality, and were very likely to quit if they died in the early part of the game. The programmers had then altered the monsters below level 50 so that if players overreached and attacked something too strong, they would simply be overwhelmed and unable to do damage, forcing them to give up and look for weaker opponents instead of dying.
Fey, of course, was not one to give up against dumb-pun monsters like dubbles. As she became accustomed to the barrage of attacks, her brain started thinking and planning.
“Magic, cast Spore every five seconds,” she commanded, choosing a pace that the mushroom could maintain indefinitely without becoming exhausted. As the status effects piled on, sleeping and paralyzed dubbles dropped to the ground. Fey was unable to leave her post defending her pets in order to take advantage of their immobile states, and focused instead on the smaller number of dubbles still attacking.
The turning point in the fight came when one of Fey's sword strikes glanced off the head of a dubble at an angle, shearing across the appendage that united the twin-monster. Both halves of the dubble dropped to the ground, unable to move except for the ineffectual waving of the severed connecting arm. Yes! Invigorated, Fey aimed for the dubbles' weak spot. The dubble's heads tended to travel one after another rather than side by side, making it difficult to hit the linkage, but slowly, Fey was surrounded by a semicircle of grounded monsters.
In the middle of her battle, Fey's attention was caught by a system notice different from all the rest:
Spore was now at level 8, with a success rate of 45% and a range of 25m. “Magic, stop casting,” Fey ordered. In a louder voice, she called out, “Blade?”
“Dammit, stop poisoning me!” came an irritated male voice somewhere behind her on the right.
“You (literally) walked right into it,” Fey muttered, continuing to fend off dubble attacks. Using her dagger to block, she managed to slice apart another dubble pair with her sword.
Closer than before, Fey heard a loud smacking sound, followed by swearing. “What the hell was that?”
“It's called a dubble,” Fey explained cheerfully (*schadenfreude*[i]). “Cut the line that connects the heads and they can't move.”
Eventually, Blade came into view, herding a group of half-dubbles along with his feet. The paralysis effects on the dubbles were wearing off, and the noise of their yelling had woken many of the sleeping dubbles. Fey went to invite Blade into a party so that Magic could resume casting Spore without harming the human, then realized that she was still in a party with Leandriel, his name grayed out on the party list to indicate he was out of range for sharing experience. She sent him a quick private message to explain her leaving of his party:
Coming home with slightly sore feet and several shopping bags, Arwyn slipped off her shoes and collapsed (melodramatically), bags and all, on her couch. She and Leah had spent a pleasant afternoon exploring various clothing and shoe stores. The majority of Arwyn's purchases consisted of practical, comfortable, and professional clothing (with the rule of thumb for clothing to be considered “practical” being that she could kick people in the head while wearing it), along with a few pieces of fancy, stylish clothing that she liked, but rarely had the occasion to wear. After dinner at a restaurant with her friend, Arwyn had come home relaxed and pleasantly tired.
Arwyn could hear the seductive voice of Fantasia calling out to her. “Come rest on this comfortable recliner,” it coaxed. (She tends to have a lot of conversations with inanimate objects. Just go with it.) Her gaze was dragged to the game helmet in the next room over as if by gravity. “Come,” it whispered.
No, she thought, sounding unconvincing even in her own head, I have to stay off until bedtime.
“But why?” asked the game helmet, a pout in its voice. “Don't you want to play with me?” (Is anybody getting creeped out? It was supposed to be funny, but it ended up getting creepy instead.)
Resolutely, Arwyn turned away from the games room (“Come back,” whispered the game). Just to have something to do, she sat at her desk and turned on her laptop. Fantasia still foremost on her mind, Arwyn ended up spending several hours watching educational videos about swordfighting on the Internet. Although she was sure that this was a bad way to learn proper technique, she memorized a few movements that she thought she could copy reasonably well.
Arwyn also came across several rants about the inaccuracies of swords as depicted in fantasy novels (which made her sad, because they were generally the coolest aspects of swords as depicted in fantasy novels); for instance, having a longsword in a back sheath is impractical because human arms are not long enough to draw it from that angle.
After the videos went rather off-topic (“related videos” my behind), Arwyn closed her laptop to send it into hibernation mode. She performed her nightly rituals of preparing for bed, even putting away her newly-purchased clothing. (Usually, it stayed in the bag until she felt like wearing it for the first time.) She peeked at the clock: 11:00 p.m. It was still early for her to go to sleep, but reasonable by humanity's standards. She gave in to her growing addiction and slid on the game helmet.
◊◊◊
A disembodied female voice. “Scanning. Player detected. Welcome back to Fantasia, Fey E'lan.”
Fey blinked as she materialized in the same place where she had logged out. Pets flashed into existence as well, and she petted them in greeting (haha, she petted her pets; this is like the notice board all over again).
Fey took a moment to recall what she had been doing before logging out. Let's see... Blade apologized, and I was unnecessarily cryptic with him for fun, and before that... Ah yes, I was training Osmosis. (The fact that it took her several seconds to remember this was sad, considering the flask of water she still held.) Plonking the slime back into the water, Fey led the way back to the village, looking for something to do while her pet trained her skill.
At the notice board, Fey looked for requests relating to monsters around her level. Emboldened by the fact that she had yet to come to serious injury (surprise attacks by level 99 angels notwithstanding), she dared go after monsters slightly higher than her own level 14. A posting caught her eye: Dubbles and Trubbles. The description read:
...Oh crap, was all Fey had time to think before every dubble in the area attacked.
It was a nightmare of a dodgeball game, thirty against one, where headshots were allowed and you could not go 'out' after being hit. Fey quickly herded her pets into the shelter between her legs and the tree behind her, taking all the damage herself rather than risk her weaker, unarmoured companions. She (mostly) managed to protect her head, but impacts slammed into every other part of her body; the combined slapping sounds were deafening.
Fey was overwhelmed, but after a minute or two of the assault, realized that her health bar had stabilized at around 150/225. The creators of Fantasia had quickly discovered during the initial stages of testing that players disliked the feeling of dying in virtual reality, and were very likely to quit if they died in the early part of the game. The programmers had then altered the monsters below level 50 so that if players overreached and attacked something too strong, they would simply be overwhelmed and unable to do damage, forcing them to give up and look for weaker opponents instead of dying.
Fey, of course, was not one to give up against dumb-pun monsters like dubbles. As she became accustomed to the barrage of attacks, her brain started thinking and planning.
“Magic, cast Spore every five seconds,” she commanded, choosing a pace that the mushroom could maintain indefinitely without becoming exhausted. As the status effects piled on, sleeping and paralyzed dubbles dropped to the ground. Fey was unable to leave her post defending her pets in order to take advantage of their immobile states, and focused instead on the smaller number of dubbles still attacking.
The turning point in the fight came when one of Fey's sword strikes glanced off the head of a dubble at an angle, shearing across the appendage that united the twin-monster. Both halves of the dubble dropped to the ground, unable to move except for the ineffectual waving of the severed connecting arm. Yes! Invigorated, Fey aimed for the dubbles' weak spot. The dubble's heads tended to travel one after another rather than side by side, making it difficult to hit the linkage, but slowly, Fey was surrounded by a semicircle of grounded monsters.
In the middle of her battle, Fey's attention was caught by a system notice different from all the rest:
Spore was now at level 8, with a success rate of 45% and a range of 25m. “Magic, stop casting,” Fey ordered. In a louder voice, she called out, “Blade?”
“Dammit, stop poisoning me!” came an irritated male voice somewhere behind her on the right.
“You (literally) walked right into it,” Fey muttered, continuing to fend off dubble attacks. Using her dagger to block, she managed to slice apart another dubble pair with her sword.
Closer than before, Fey heard a loud smacking sound, followed by swearing. “What the hell was that?”
“It's called a dubble,” Fey explained cheerfully (*schadenfreude*[i]). “Cut the line that connects the heads and they can't move.”
Eventually, Blade came into view, herding a group of half-dubbles along with his feet. The paralysis effects on the dubbles were wearing off, and the noise of their yelling had woken many of the sleeping dubbles. Fey went to invite Blade into a party so that Magic could resume casting Spore without harming the human, then realized that she was still in a party with Leandriel, his name grayed out on the party list to indicate he was out of range for sharing experience. She sent him a quick private message to explain her leaving of his party:
