Chapter 23: Chapter 23: Questing Forward

The rest of their second day came and went by, the three of them all adding each other as friends and idly chatting for hours on end, no one having the energy left to do anything more as the eventually said their goodbyes for the day and logged out.

And as they all slowly logged back in and gathered in their makeshift base of operations the next morning the next day, they slowly gathered a plan on what to start with next.

So as they set out to begin day three, the trio ventured back out into the wilds.

“T-The dungeon you mentioned is out this way, then?”

“No, the first dungeon is down the river, and the second is another direction entirely. Today is the day we get you two trained up with anything relevant, before I drag you into a dungeon with a certified professional like myself.”

“...you said you were Level 2 when you did the first one though.”

“Yes, and Elise isn’t even Level 2 yet, so my point remains!”

The mage did in fact have a decent enough point. Prim was only Level 7 still, while Elise had yet to even have her first combat encounter since making her character. Monica may have beaten the first dungeon underleveled, but the scaling for a three person party compared to a solo run would likely be like comparing a 100 meter sprint to a rally race.

“The three of us are going to start working on getting real, useful skills we can work with. And the best way to do that is by heading out to actually start doing some of these quests posted around town and finding some low level monsters, obviously.”

“...N-Nice monsters like Silk, right?”

“Chk?”

“Don’t call them nice, they were an unhelpful witness to a murder.”

“….Chkchk?”

“What? No, I didn’t kill you, you fell into that fire on your own.”

“Chhhk? Chk chkchk?!”

“It’s different because I say it’s different, you little runt!”

The pair of spiders continued bickering, Elise laughing quietly to herself as Prim sighed, mostly looking to be second guessing her choice of party members.

The roads were quiet this early, in-game sunrise only having been about an hour earlier as they followed the largest of the routes out of town. Whereas so far they’d mainly split their time between dense forest and crowded mountain tunnels, today they found themselves tracing a well worn path towards open grasslands, sparse patches of trees the only thing to interrupt the rolling hills against the horizon.

“Sure is a lot prettier out this way, huh. You can really tell they wanted people to start in this direction after they made their characters.”

“I guess? It’s, uh… a little hard to enjoy the scenery from here.”

Monica was currently held several feet off of the ground, once again clutched tight like a pet cat as their towering tank carried her along happily. The mention of intentionally seeking out monsters to fight had once again activated her flight-or-also-flight response, and they’d been forced into coming up with an eventual compromise to soothe her frayed nerves on the trip out.

“Hm…? Oh, s-s-sorry, I can hold you up higher if you’d like-”

“Please do not make me any more visible like this.”

Prim had taken over the role of Silk’s transportation in lieu of current circumstances, the spiderling limply dangling their legs out of her bag as they watched the scenery pass by.

Their kitsune had assumed the role of party leader without awaiting anyone else’s input on the matter, scooping up several seemingly random low level quests with the intent of getting the other two any manner of combat experience before they ventured back towards the dungeon they’d been forced back from earlier.

And before long, they reached the area for their first proper quest. It was a short ways off the main road, a large, particularly flower-rich hill that almost looked like a scene out of a picture book as the sun hung low in the sky, framing directly behind it.

On top of the picturesque hilltop sat (or rather, flew) their targets.

They darted past to and fro, flitting just a few feet off of the ground as they flew from flower to flower. Large yellow and red insects that closely resembled wasps filled the airspace of the hill, each of them a bit smaller than Silk was. Stumpy wings flapped rapidly to keep them aloft, while the place their stinger would have been was replace with a nozzle-like appendage.

[Wispwasp] Lv. 3

“Yep, those are what we’re here for. Apparently they’re crop pests just generally harass merchants passing through.”

“Do you just have some kind of… bug attraction or something?”

“I’m not the one that keeps putting bugs in everything! Besides, they seem like exactly like what I needed…”

She quickly snaked out of a distracted Elise’s grip, winding around behind them and pushing them forward towards the swarm.

“Alright, tanks first! Go get em champ, you got this-”

“W-Wait, no, I c-can’t go up there, there’s m-monsters…!”

“That’s the idea, yes!”

“M-Maybe one of you should go first then, you’re b-both higher levels s-so…”

The elf dug her heels in like a dog on a leash, obstinate in her refusal to engage with anything vaguely threatening whatsoever. The zero STR fox quickly found herself entirely unable to make any headway with her before giving up, panting loudly.

“Fine, fine… gotta do everything myself here, huh…”

She puffed her chest out, taking a deep breath as she stomped around the un-tank and up the hill herself, glossy black robe shimmering in the morning sun.

Reaching the closest of the huge wasps, it turned to glance over at the sound of her footsteps, and was immediately rewarded with a staff directly to the face, being forcibly knocked from its flower perch and tumbling down the hill a short ways in a confused heap as the Gloom Mage’s warpath continued on to swat at several more of the bugs, gathering the attention of as many as she could.

It wasn’t long before the smacked insects righted themselves, attention locked onto their harasser as she made no effort at all to hide or get away from her victims, the swarm gradually moving from grazing idly to moving in on the invading mage. Before long, at least twenty or thirty of them buzzed around her at a distance, watching her intently as they swarmed, their newest party member shaking like a leaf from worry.

“B-B-Be careful…!”

“Oho, this is nothing to be worried about, I assure you~ Hazard Fumes!”

Her signature dull green cloud roiled in on cue once more, pouring out over the hillside around her. The toxic fumes engulfed several of the wasps before they could even react, knocking them from the sky instantly as their wings locked up.

“See? Nothing to worry about, just easy experience fodder for you both.”

“Hm…? O-Oh, yeah, I just got my first level from that!”

Sure enough, as the poison ticked away at the first few, the experience from them was doled out to the entire party and not just Monica, Elise getting a few levels quickly as Prim slowly climbed up as well.

The fox proceeded to charge forward, trying to pull her cloud along with her to catch more of the bugs within it, the formerly curious insects now desperately trying to keep distance from her as they watched their companions fall one by one around her, a game of tag with a massive, featureless, opaque cloud.

“...I-Is this how casters usually fight things…?”

“I don’t think this is how anyone was meant to fight anything.”

She chased after the fleeing bugs fervently, a sentient layer of fog pursuing very confused and concerned enemies on the scenic countryside, a sight that would have convinced any passing-by players to simply turn around and head back to town to try again tomorrow.

“Haaa… I kinda assumed they’d be… maybe a little less fast than me by now.”

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Massive AGI only helped so much when her only method of dispatching the quest targets had significant movement lag as she dragged it along behind her, and the wasps being able to simply keep flying away didn’t help much at all either.

“Actually, wait, Monica?”

“What’s up?”

Prim had remembered something from earlier that suddenly seemed rather important for the current situation.

“Oh, um, maybe you could drop Hazard Fumes for a bit and we can come help?”

“W-We? Why do I h-have to go…!”

“Yeah, I’ve got this one, no problem, just need a bit longer to get the last few killed for the quest!”

“No no, it’s not that, just…”

A particularly brave Wispwasp nervously edged closer to the cloud’s edge as it stopped advancing for the moment, inspecting the wall of death that had claimed so many others of its kind.

“You all can handle the next one we go to, okay? I’m already in the middle of finishing this one up, so just gimme a bit to wrap up.”

“No, Monica, you don’t get it, I really think you should get rid of the cloud.”

The wasp prodding in at her gaseous barrier fluttered around a bit more, clearly working up their courage to try and retaliate as they flicked out the nozzle mounted in place of a stinger.

“Stop worrying so much, you’re gonna make your hair fall out.”

“Monica, back in the cave, when you did this it-”

“Ugh, don’t remind me of that jerk from before…”

“It’s not about them, just listen to me-”

“Can’t it wait a second? I gotta focus on catching these things.”

“Monica the gas is flam-”

Working up as much courage as they could muster, the low level bug finally managed to counter attack as they spat a minuscule little jet of flame towards the witch.

The quaint, perfect little storybook-cover hillside, over the course of roughly one second, quickly erupted with enough force to blast Prim, Elise, and Silk all several yards back, the remaining wasps getting launched in every direction as most all of them died instantly to the blast wave, while a certain incredibly intelligent mage lay cratered into the burnt grass at ground zero.

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Several long minutes of waiting for the blast zone to calm down later, the rest of the party managed to scale the blast-blighted hill, incinerated plant life turning to ash and dust underfoot as they climbed.

Directly in the middle of the devastation was one Monica Furdel, not quite dead, but good and properly roasted on all sides, coughing up blood and soot.

“...you could have mentioned that earlier.”

“E-Ehe…”

It took the other three a long while to get her scraped off of the landscape, pouring HP potions down her gullet until she was significantly less incinerated.

“Well… I-I guess that completes the quest, then…?”

“I sure hope so, I don’t feel like seeing another fire for the next week at least…”

Sighing, the fox flicked open her menu again, searching through tabs until she found her quest register.

[Slay Wispwasps: 55/12]

Just barely enough.

Already getting ready to head off again, she eyed a new set of notifications as she closed her menus out, quickly scrolling back over to them and opening the new listings up.

[New Skill: Flash]

- Unlock: Start a fire while in a party.

- Fires a non-damaging fire projectile. Can be used to signal or lure targets.

[New Skill: Blast Endurance I]

- Unlock: Survive a large explosion.

- Natural resistance to damage from explosions.

- Resistance is 5% per level of skill.

[Skill Upgrade: (Fire Endurance I) -> (Fire Endurance III)]

- Unlock: Take 2000+ damage from fire sources.

“Oh, well, there’s part of why I wanted to take this on at least… if I’m gonna keep getting set on fire I may as well get prepared for it- hmm?”

Another new skill had almost gone unnoticed at the bottom of the screen under everything else., having to tab back into the screen to pull it back up again.

[New Skill: Taunt]

- Unlock: Draw aggro on 50+ enemies while in a party.

- Directs all aggro against party members towards self instead.

- Also passively increases aggro by 50% when not in use.

“…”

“...oh! I f-finally got Lurk, I can m-mark that off!”

“Huh, I did too… wait, does that mean Monica-”

She had already laid back facedown in her crater again, once more the butt of some cruel fate’s joke.

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