Chapter 8: 8: Dancing

I needed to get into my pajamas because I’d be sleeping through the night while I played Pellan this time. Only problem was that I’d ruined my pajama pants. They were the last pair left, I had outgrown the rest and so they had been thrown out. I shrugged and got undressed, then grabbed a big guy Tshirt and slipped it on. I was in my house, mum and dad were the only ones here, it would be fine. I ran down the hall to the bathroom and did everything I needed to be ready for bed. Including going to the toilet, which was… different. Woooo!

Back in bed, I slipped the VR helmet on and logged in. When I got downstairs to the Inn’s main room again, Col wasn't there yet so I sat at the bar and waited. I had to decline a drink a few times from the over eager barkeep. He wasn't this pushy with the others at the bar. He stopped when I scowled at him.

I was scratching away at the table with my nails when Col thumped into the seat next to me.

“Sup Syl!” he said with a big lopsided smile. The same one that had almost knocked me out on launch day, despite it being on a different face. It had no effect on me at all except the happiness of seeing a friend.

“Hi Col,” I said nonchalantly, “What’s up?”

“Nothing, I just got home from the gym and hopped on,” he told me, holding the same grin.

Oh my god Jeremy please. You haven't been to the gym in a month, and you always complain about how sore you are afterwards!

Instead of voicing that, I raised an eyebrow and said, “mhm… well. Do you mind if we go to the market before we do whatever? I want to sell some stuff and see if I can find any cool spells to buy.”

“Sure thing, “ he flashed a thumbs up at me, “I was thinking we should start walking towards the others in my group. The city we’re gonna meet them in is like 5 days walk from here.”

As he spoke we got up and left the Inn. Looking up at him as we walked I replied, “Yeah I’m good for starting the trek, but we might have a problem. There’s a group of PKers camping out around town atm. I saw some other players that got killed by them earlier today.”

He hummed and mulled over what I’d told him, “Are you up for trying to make it past them?”

“Yeah I think so. I think they're killing players who are coming back to town from grinding so they can take the loot,” I said.

“Wait you drop items when you die? I died once already and I didn't drop anything,” he said in confusion.

“Yeah, if you die to a player you drop a random number of items from your inventory. You don’t lose anything from your equipped items, and you have 5 slots in a special inventory that is safe too,” I explained to him.

“Huh! The more you know. But hey, you teased me for being terse, and now look who's being succinct eh?” he teased me.

I felt my face heat in a small blush, “Just trying to be helpful.”

“Yeah nah you did good there,” he said, clearly enjoying my blush.

I really really wish I was into him right now. Where did my crush on him go?! He has been absolutely charming to me since I became Syl. Even his lying about the gym was funny. He’s obviously interested in me, he’d even said so in the group chat. I didn’t say much as we walked towards the market, instead I spent the walk silently mourning my sexuality.

Col must have realised something was up because when he spoke it was in a less boisterous manner than he usually affected, “We're here, what type of stuff do you have to sell?”

I cleared my throat to get it back into speaking order, “Uh, a bunch of clothes like mine, some gauntlets and shoes and stuff.”

“Okay well don't quote me on this but I think the clothing stalls are over that way,” he said pointing.

As I sold my extra stuff I realised pretty quickly that I was really awful at haggling. Like super terrible. My social anxiety was really screwing me over here. Col actually stepped in and did the bargaining on my behalf with the gauntlets, which were the last thing I had to sell.

When he stepped over and gave me my money he had a strange expression on his face, “You are actually really shy aren't you? You seemed pretty normal when we met, but now you're.. yeah.”

I nodded, “Yeah. I’ve always been bad at talking to new people. I had no idea why for the longest time, but I think I know why now.”

“Why?”

I shrugged, “I’ll tell you later kay?”

“Sure. I picked up a campsite while you were ‘bartering’. As well as some rations for you. You owe me 3 silver for those by the way.”

I counted out the silver and gave it to him, “Thanks J-... Col. Uh, should we just try head out them?”

Wow that was close. Almost fucked up there!

“You didn't buy any spells though.”

I shrugged, “I didn't like,” I gestured at the market, “That. I don’t want to talk to any more strangers, lets just go.”

“Alright. Lead on then,” he told me with a wave of his arm.

We made it to the town gates soon enough, where we saw a few people sitting despondent around the respawn shrine. Looks like the Pkers were still at work out there. The gates were standing open, it was mid afternoon so we still had plenty of daylight left to make tracks. Walking around the players in the way, we headed out of the gate and into the wilderness. Before we left, Col sent me a party invite. As soon as I accepted it, I was able to get a sense of his general direction when I thought of him, as well as a sense of how injured he was. That would be helpful.

The forest was actually quite pleasant in the afternoon as we followed a dirt road through the tall redwoods. Bird calls echoed through the canopy and wind rustled the leaves of the trees. It helped my mood a lot, despite the tension of potentially being jumped by bloodthirsty bandits. I felt a smile crawl back onto my face.

“Feeling better then?” asked Col.

I breathed in the forest air before exhaling with a grin, “Yeah. Less people out here. I’m usually better about my social anxiety but the last like two days have been wild and intense.”

“Yeah? Hope things calm down for you then.”

We continued to walk in companionable silence for a good twenty minutes before we heard it. A loud, low thump sound followed by the cry of birds taking flight. Col and I looked towards the disturbance, then back to each other. Oh dear. I was hoping one of us would have restraint, but apparently we're still both way too curious for our own good.

He raised his eyebrow, “Yeaaaah?”

I gave him a lopsided grin, “Yeah.”

We picked up our pace and deviated our course towards the now obvious sounds of a fight. My heart was going a million miles an hour and I felt like I should be violently vibrating around the forest floor like a really old phone getting a call. First pvp encounter and we were running towards it, not away. We deserve the trouble we are about to stick our noses into.

There’s a whizzing sound followed by a thump, and an arrow appeared in a tree nearby, buzzing in it’s new home like a caged bee. I took quick mental stock of all my spells. That weird racial spell, long healy zap, short healy zap, pretty stomp and throwing angry glow sticks. I’m a wizard Sylanna.

The clearing we rushed into was chaos. There were two sides, a bunch of edgy looking people with black and green clothes, dark expressions, and a mismatched group of adventurers. One of them, obviously the leader, had dirty blond hair and dark eyes that adorned a defined face of around 24 years of age. He also had a huge warbow, and he was putting arrows in his victims with savage glee.

“Just give up and die,” he laughed, “It’ll take less time for all of us! You certainly can’t win, you’re fucking garbage!”

He was right, Pkers had the advantage, I counted 12 of them to the 7, ouch... nope six, adventurers. Without waiting for Col to act, I aimed a shard at the nearest bandit and let loose. The shard struck his armour and caused him to stagger. Following hard on the heels of my shard was a flaming spear from Col that went straight through his armour, impaling him before dissipating in a conflagration of wild flame.

“Ohh, more shitters come to stop us? You can’t stop the Blackfeather guild you dumbasses, but we’ll take your shit just like the others!” called the leader with an arrogant wave of his hand.

Looking at the group of battling adventurers, I quickly marked friend and foe in my mind. We moved to support the friendlies, who gave us quick glances before returning to the fight. When we arrived, I reminded myself to try and move to a rhythm, and to move with grace. Time to dance!

The first thing I did was activate my Circle of Dawn ability, bringing my foot down firmly on the ground. The light rushed out, sweeping over the clearing, simultaneously easing the wounds of my allies and burning my enemies with holy fire. It wasn't much in the way of damage on the bad guys I noted. I’m still low level and I suspect most people here are much higher level than me.

I decided to focus on healing, twirling through the maelstrom of magic and steel like a New Zealand fantail riding the Wellington wind. A friendly elven rogue finished pulling an arrow from his chest and I placed a soothing hand on his arm, channeling healing energy through his body. The bandit who had shot the rogue growled in frustration and drew another arrow. With a flick of his wrist, the rogue sent a dagger flying into her leg and she went down in a cry of pain.

Raising my hand, I fired a shard of light into the side of another bandit, breaking her guard and allowing a big human tank to drive the edge of his shield into her face. I wasn't perfect though, several times I tripped or stumbled on the uneven forest floor. I also had problems with mana, I was so focused on my amateurish dancing that I forgot to conserve mana. Twice I wasn't able to save some friendly combatants from death. I watched each time as their bodies fell limp to the ground before fading from view, leaving bags with their belongings on the ground. I needed to do some grinding, get better so I could save more people in the future.

Col was a force of nature in the fight. I saw him from the corner of my eyes as I did my best to support our allies. I saw as lightning arced from his hand and snapped into an enemy ranger, throwing them onto their back. I healed his wounds as he blocked a strike with his staff before bathing them in flame. His spears were everywhere, seeking targets and finding soft places to plant themselves. As he and our allies threw out damage, it became very apparent that the enemy did not have a healer, and of the 12 of them that had been in the battle initially, only one was a tank. The defenders had the advantage in support roles and it was beginning to show.

I saw one of our new friends go down, her long dark hair billowing from the blow she’d taken. I was there as fast as my short legs could take me, pulling her away from the killing blow and hitting the attacker with a shard to his face. With the bandit momentarily distracted, I placed my hand on the exit wound the girl had taken, forcing my spell directly into her body through the hole. She gasped as the pain left her and air could flow freely into her lungs again. With a vicious lunge she took her sword and buried it in the man's neck, killing him outright before he could recover. I kept my hand where it was, bracing her as she recovered.

She looked around to me with an exhausted and grateful smile, “Thanks. Wow that was too close...” Her words trailed off as she met my eyes. It was Karen, the girl from the inn this ingame morning.

The uncomfortable feeling from earlier returned again and my stomach turned as I met her huge green eyes, I gulped, “Are you okay, battle’s still happening.”

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“No it’s not,” came a voice from nearby.

We both looked up and I saw Karen’s tank friend approaching us, his armour scraped and dented, his face bloody where he’d taken a glancing hit to the temple. I raised my hand and hit him with my ranged healing spell, closing the wound on his forehead. All the bandits were dead, their bodies having faded away leaving little brown sacks of loot.

“Thanks, and for jumping in too. You guys turned the tide there,” he said with a weary expression.

“No problem, I think both of us wanted to jump in and have a good fight. It’s all so intense and gory, but damn I’m still pumped,” Col said enthusiastically.

One of the two other surviving allies grinned at Col, “Yeah, fuck it’s nice to be on the winning side of a pvp fight though. Those guys have been causing trouble all fucking day.”

“Yup!” said the other survivor, “We got to get the other’s stuff back to them in town though,” he said looking at his friend.

“Wait, we have loot to divide up. The PKers dropped some stuff,” said Karen’s tank dude.

I laughed as Col’s eyes lit up, “Oh my gosh Col you are so predictable.”

“What? We’re playing an mmo, it’s all about the loot!” he grinned back at me.

“And the levels,” said Karen quietly next to me, she sounded like she was a bit out of it still from the battle.

I got up and helped everyone grab the little bags that contained the randomly dropped possessions of the dead bandits. They had dropped a few things, but it seemed like only what they had taken off other adventurers fairly recently. Karen’s Maori tank friend said they probably stash everything they get once in a while to avoid losing everything if they die.

We divided up the coins between all those present, plus those who had fought beside us and died. It seemed there was three groups of us that had fought together, a full party, whom were mostly dead now, Col and myself, and Karen and Tank Guy. The Full party guys took their share of the loot and rushed to find their friends back in town. I just threw the random assortment of crafting materials and dead bits of creature in my inventory to be sorted through later.

The four of us that were left stood there and looked at each other. Well, Col and Liam sized each other up and I stared at the ground because Karen still made me nervous as fuck. Her eyes weirded me out. She was also like fricken a foot taller than me and it was intimidating. Anyway, Tank Guy and Col.

Tank Guy nodded to Col and I, “So yeah, I’m called Slammon’s but you’ll probably hear her call me Liam. We know each other in real life.”

Karen looked at us and said, “My player name is TroubledQuintet, but just call me Karen.”

I mentally filed them under their normal names because it was way easier and they had told us them so yeah.

Liam looked at the two of us and asked, “So what do we call you two?”

“Oh, my bad, I’m Colourless. Call me Col,” said Col amicably.

Liam turned to me. I stared at the ground. It was like really fascinating, and a much better alternative to actually speaking. He cleared his throat, trying to prompt me to speak.

“She’s Sylanna, she goes by Syl,” supplied Col, seeing my reluctance to speak.

“What’s up with her? She healed Karen earlier in the day at the inn. Just kinda pounced on her, healed her and then bolted,” asked Liam.

“Thanks, by the way. It was nice,” said karen quietly. She was watching me.

“She’s got problems talking to new people. She usually talks a whole lot more than this, at least in the short time I’ve known her,” explained Col.

I should have been kinda annoyed at all this talking about me like I’m not there, even though I wasn’t really. Instead of being upset though all I could think or hear was ‘She she her she her she she her,’ and it was making me really really happy.

“Ah. Karen’s the same, though not that bad,” said Liam.

“Anyway, we’d better head out right Syl? We want to make some progress towards Dailsil before we have to log off,” Col told them, his face in an apologetic smile.

“Hey we’re going that way too,” blurted Karen.

“Yeah we are…” Liam said looking at Karen, “I guess if you guys are okay with it we should travel together?”

“Yeah fine by me, you okay with it too Syl?” Col asked me.

Shiiiit. “Yeah it’s okay,” I mumbled and nodded.

“Hey she speaks!” Col chuckled, ruffling my hair teasingly. I growled at him.

“Well, I guess we should go then, follow me,” Liam told us.

Col oriented himself in the direction we needed to go and set off, sending party invites to our two new friends as he walked.

We made it back to the road pretty easily, and once we were on it I opened my character menu and began to read through the notifications I’d gotten from our battle. Apparently players were worth a lot of experience, because I’d gained level three and was a small margin away from level four. I had three skill points to spend and 5 attribute points to spend. I took a look at the passive skills with excitement.

Spell Dancer: move through the field of battle with deadly grace, using your body’s harmony and rhythm to increase your casting speed and dodge chance.

Cool! I spent the point necessary to unlock the basic level in Spell dancer and then promptly did a little happy hop as we walked. Karen gave me a funny look for that and I quickly stopped. I dumped 2 points into wisdom to help with my mana issues, and three points into dexterity, because dancing. I actually felt my stride change slightly. It was barely noticeable, but I felt myself begin to step better, able to automatically traverse the uneven roadway in a more sure footed manner. Interesting. My body responded to the points I spent in stats. Filing that away for later consideration. I took a look at the passive skills again.

Unarmed Casting: while many use wands and staves to channel their arcane power, you prefer to use your bare hands. Upgrading this skill will reduce the mana cost penalty on casting spells while also increasing your casting speed.

I snagged that one too. I hadn’t planned on it, but apparently I was going to be some sort of healing machine gun. Sounded like fun, and also a whole lot of work. With my last point I wanted a spell, although my choices might not be great.

I was totally wrong, some of these spells seemed really fun. There was one spell that shot forth a bunch of golden rope, binding to a friendly. Then it would pull me towards them and heal both of us. Another cool one I found was a spell that formed a shield of golden light, about the size of a buckler. It would hover a few inches off the arm just like a regular shield, except if you hit people with it they would take radiant damage instead of blunt damage.

The one I ended up choosing over these was a healing staple that I would definitely be needing. The spell placed a large faintly glowing circle on the ground that healed all friendlies that stood within it. It had a reasonably long duration, around a minute before I would need to reapply it. I had seen healers use similar abilities in just about every mmo I’d played. I figured I’d pick up the fun spells later.

We walked for the entire afternoon and into the night. As the darkness descended through the trees we stopped to have some food and drink. Liam and Col chatted away, becoming friendly rather quickly in that strange combination of joking and one upmanship that guys did whenever they met each other. Karen joined in on their banter on occasion, mainly to slip in some funny one liners at Liam’s expense.

At first I thought he would get mad at jibes, but they appeared to be good friends, and he took it as the friendly ribbing it was. I was content to laugh, giggle and say nothing. There were other people to hold the conversation, I would be the eye rolling audience to their peacock displays.

It was about ten pm I estimated when the monsters started hitting us. These ones were more vicious and much higher levelled than the ones Col and I fought previously together, and they were tough at first. As we fought, we realised that despite missing two dps as per the game’s definition of a full party, we had all the roles covered. Liam as tank, myself as healer, Col as a ranged dps, and Karen as a melee dps.

With Liam as shotcaller, we began to work pretty well as a unit, carving a path through the forest as we killed anything that was stupid enough to jump us. I had fun. A lot of fun. I reached level four as the game clock approached roughly eleven pm. I received another three skill points and five attribute points. I assigned the attribute points straight away, adding two to dexterity, two to intelligence and one to wisdom. I decided to save the skill points until I’d done more research on what was possible.

It was beginning to get light when we decided to stop and log off. Liam got his camp out, which appeared to be some steel and painted wood contraption that held a glowing blue crystal inside. The blue crystal emanated a hazy blue shield that would keep anything hostile from hanging around the point we logged off. It also had the added benefit that while it was deployed, it could be used as a bind point, so that if we died, we’d respawn here instead of back in town where our default respawn was. We had a quick meal to sustain our game bodies and then everyone settled in comfortable positions to log off. Before following their example I knelt and began a small whispered prayer to Felsia, my goddess.

When I finished, the others were staring at me and Col asked me with innocent curiosity, “You’re religious?”

“I am now,” I said to them quietly, “I’m a priestess to the Goddess of the Bright Sky, Feslia. It’s why my spells all have that blue gold colour, same as my eyes.”

“That’s kinda cool,” said Karen.

“Do you get any special bonuses for it?” asked Liam.

I shrugged, “I actually can’t remember. I think so. I got that touch healing spell from her.”

“Nice! Keep praying then Syl,” Col grinned.

“Mhm, I’m logging off now, cya guys,” I said with a yawn.

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