Chapter 13: Death, resurection, evolution.

When I woke up, if you can call it that, I found myself floating in an endless grey fog. I looked around and seeing nothing but the same featureless void.

“Fizzle? Fiona? Baruu?” I called out.

My voice had a strange quality to it like I was hearing it from far away. As it echoed through the expanse, I felt myself pulled by a force through the fog, the only thing marking my passage was the shifting of the haze as I was hauled through it. I was confused; unsure if this was part of the game, a loading screen, or something like the blackness I found myself in before the game begun its intro cinematics. I could now hear a bleating somewhere. After some nebulous period, (having no real sense of time in this space, it could have taken hours or minutes;) Baruu emerged from the mists. She looked spectral, like the dungeon boss we had fought, but as she snuggled into me I noticed that I too was partially transparent. We floated cuddling like that for a while until the mists coalesced becoming thicker, like water. It was then I realized I needed to breathe.

We emerged from a fountain gasping for breath and covered with the thick slime that made up the waters. After taking a moment to regain my breath, I realized that I was in the Temple of Lil. The somewhat familiar surroundings did much to soothe me, Baruu had even fallen quiet and appeared to be half asleep in my arms.

“I’m so sorry girl.” I told her, running my new left hand over her fleece. It was then that I noticed something. Ever since I had known Baruu she’d had a bony plate on her forehead, but now that we had resurrected, that feature was gone. Indeed, much of her woolly fleece was receding starting to show some mottled patterning. I held her out at arm’s length to inspect her further. She was less bulky I noted; maybe this was her transitioning to be more fawn-like? I decided to ask Fiona when we got back to the inn. I just hoped they had fled their opponents when I had died. I rubbed at the back of my neck feeling a phantom twinge. Looking around, the chamber was as empty it had been the first time Fizzle had taken me here. The statue of Lil stood above the fountain just as it had the last time, it’s ragged shawls and veils dancing in an unfelt breeze. I shivered when the water rippled suddenly and a human female emerged from the pool gasping for air, followed by a prismatic cocoon; Fiona and Glitters. I rushed over to help, Baruu floating in to lick the slime clear from Fiona’s face. She looked a sight, but I doubt I looked any better.

“Those assholes.” She muttered as she began wringing out her hair, and as if on cue, the pool rippled again spitting out Fizzle and a dimly lit Violet.

“Those assholes,” he fumed as he began wiping away sheets of goo that clung to his robes. “Wouldn’t be pulling that shit if I were on my main.”

A pair of grey robed and veiled priestesses appeared not long after Fizzle had spawned from the fountain. They bore rough towels that proved incredibly efficient at removing the gelatinous muck. Once we were done with the towels, the two received them back and returned to the fountain to begin some sort of hymn and ceremoniously began wringing the towels out, depositing the precious goo back into the pool. We left them to it, all of us in dark or reflective moods and all in low spirits.

We found our way back to the tavern around midnight, slipping in just as the barkeep began closing for the night. He paused only long enough to let us through then barred the door, disappearing behind the counter a moment later. He brought us some mugs of thick beer, bread and cheese then bid us goodnight.

We took the offered foodstuffs and went to our table by the shuttered windows and sat down taking a few moments to eat in silence. It did help a little I reflected, as my mood slowly improved. Fiona was looking more like herself and was scrolling through her inventory looking for something; I didn’t know what as the window was greyed out to me. Fizzle, who had been muttering angrily all the way to the inn but not directly talking to us had shifted from angry to brooding. I could see it in his large pink eyes.

“Screw it, trade me your shit guys.” Fizzle said getting up to stand on the bench. “Fiona you can still create a new character, right?”

“Yeah, I just can’t leave the game entirely.” She sighed opening her inventory, her belongings beginning to appear in orderly rows in the bare between us all.

“Wait, what?” I asked looking to the two. “Why do we have to make new characters?”

Fizzle stared at me like I was an idiot for a moment. When I stared him down, he looked to Fiona for help. She considered me for a moment much like when I had met the Sargent then shrugged at him. He heaved a sigh.

“Because those guys are entrenched down there. What’s more, they’ve manipulated a high-level NPC to help them just in-case someone does step up to take them down.”

“Why though?” I asked feeling a tad sulky.

“Likely to protect the item the ship captain needs in order to sail, or the NPC that has it at the very least.” Fiona explained gently.

“It’s going to be a ball ache dude.” Fizzle groaned “We can just autogenerate some characters, with the three of us it won’t take long to level and-”

“I say we step up,” I said suddenly cutting off Fizzle mid-pitch. “We’ve got a bunch of rare stones and stuff. We can power up our monsters and take them on.”

“Really?” He asked as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Because I don’t think you know what you’re getting into here.”

“He doesn’t,” Fiona agreed with a sigh before perking up again. “but are we really going to let him do it by himself? There’s three of them, three of us. They’re good odds.”

“Did you forget about the NPCs?” he asked flatly.

“Please, I guarantee Blue has befriended some other NPCs.” She looked to me, I nodded. “See?”

“Right, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to have to get serious,” he said suddenly opening his inventory window and extracting piles of stones and fragments. “I’m going to power up Violet. Blue, you get to work reconstructing and identifying our stones. Fiona, you’re in game all the time now so you must sleep. We’ll log back in later and have a plan for dealing with them.”

Surprisingly she didn’t protest. She rose to her feet then leaned in and planted a kiss on Fizzle’s forehead before departing and climbing the stairs to the floors above and her awaiting bed. I stared at Fizzle for a moment after she was left. Only when I heard a distant door close did I begin my interrogation.

“What was that?” I asked; our defeat forgotten in an instant as I turned to my friend.

“Oh uh, yeah.” He set down the stones he had been examining. “So, you know how I told you I was seeing someone in-game.”

“Yeah...” I said beginning to piece it together, the casual affection I had seen between the two and now the forehead kiss. “So, it’s Fiona?”

“Yeah, I was going to bring it up before she got here.” He told me with a dismissive wave.

I scowled at him; it was true he had sheepishly brought it up when he turned down a girl from one of the other work crews. I had accepted it, it wasn’t an uncommon thing only I hadn’t realized Fiona, or Rachel more to the point, was from Earth. She had mentioned she was making the transition which suggested things were serious.

“So, uh, is it going to be a cohabitation then?” I asked.

“Yeah she’ll be registering with me and uh” he cleared his throat. “When she’s working, we may, um… apply for permission to have a child.”

“You should have told me man,” I scolded him, he dropped his gaze a moment later. I sighed and ruffled his hair turning to the stones on the table. “So, what are you feeding to Violet?”

“Oh,” he perked up and turned to the stones, a scowl settling on his childish features as he took in the stones not heaped together at the middle of the table.

“Some of the better affinity stones I’ve picked up.” He pointed to two small gem-like stones, his finger hovered above a pitch-black stone. “This is a death affinity stone, the affinity is rarer than your traditional magic types. It saps the health of the victims and restores it to the caster. The other, the glass-like one, that’s a null affinity stone. Null is anti-magic and while it doesn’t have that large a spell list, the ability to undo or counter magic is vital. It can also get rid of like curses and magical poisons.”

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I nodded and opened my own inventory. There was a handful of unidentified stones, I withdrew each and set them down in front of me then looked at the other stones still listed in the window. A couple of aquatic species stones of poor quality unlikely to enhance a creature like Baruu in any visible way; but enough to start shaping a slime I reasoned. I’d save them for the slime that slumbered in its stone at my hip, held in a special pouch that only I could open. There were a few other stones of low quality but nothing that stood out. I took out what fragments I could use with my stonecraft skill and began the slow process of reshaping the stone into something useful. My efforts yielded a few skill levels but the unidentified stones themselves proved far more interesting than the simple species and water affinity stones I had looted previously. Three of the four stood out: a good quality death affinity stone, some sort of species stone that created an undead creature, like a vampire or something maybe? The final stone was different from the others, it looked metallic and had naturally occurring geometric patterns. It reflected Violet’s pale light and shone blue. I took a moment to appreciate the fist-sized chunk of stone then checked the item description properly.

Exceptional Magical enhancement stone

Item quality: Very Rare

If consumed by a monster the damage done by their offensive spells will be doubled. Furthermore, the trainer of the monster’s spell damage is increased by twenty five percent so long as he or she is within five feet of the enhanced creature.

I whistled; Fizzle looked over from his side of the table where he was puzzling over the species stone he would feed to Violet; a ‘Hex-flame necro-slime’ which was apparently Violet’s species moniker I realized as I focused on her. A long name for a globule of purple blue flames.

“Whatchya got there then?” He asked, hopping up onto his feet atop the table to peer at the stone in my hand. He eyed it then shoved the four yet to be identified stones he had in front of me. “This is amazing dude and it’s given me and idea. So, you remember that guy who made a suit out of his monster and starred in a role play stream as some sort of hero?”

I nodded familiar with the surreal piece of work which had been hammed-up like an ancient super hero fable. Honestly it hadn’t been for me, though I had enjoyed the magic and the visuals of the in-game production I only really appreciated the monsters.

“Yeah, what of it?”

“Well, I got that mimic stone earlier, so if I pop that in along with the candlestick, I’ll have a mimic that’s sort of like a crude staff. If I give her this stone. It’ll make up for the fact I’m about to abandon my original plan of making some sort of spectral fire wraith. Is it okay for me to use the stone? You can keep those four unidentified stones in return.”

“How do I know that these stones won’t be terrible?” I asked narrowing my eyes at him. Still I reached across the table and pulled them towards me, beginning the short process of identifying the stones. As I had feared, three of them were just affinity or some mid-quality species and trait stones. The fourth however turned out to be another of the weird rare stones that Fizzle had been so excited over. I read it aloud.

Advanced Magic Catalyst

Item quality: very rare

A rare monster stone to be fed to a monster with complimentary magic types. Once consumed the compatible elements will be fused into a more powerful magical affinity, the spell progression of the combined schools will continue to progress, but advanced or unique abilities can be gained from such union.

Fizzle paused in what he was doing, apparently shoving the mass of stone shards towards me for reassembly. It was becoming a ritual actually; whenever we sat down I’d reassemble stones and then we’d pick one at a time until none were left, I always picked last as I was getting skill gains out of it and while my skill was progressing, (since I had learned to identify stones I hadn’t learned anything else), perhaps I had to return to the trainer to learn more things. He looked from the stone in his hand then back to the stone I held and back again then shrugged, dropping the null stone he had shown me earlier along with the enhancement stone into Violet who seemed to float nearby waiting for the tasty stones. Even Baruu was sniffing hungrily at the stones, I had to shoo her away from them a few times whenever one of them took her fancy. I didn’t need her mutating into an entirely new creature any time soon, not unless, you know, it was me bringing about the changes.

“What affinities does Baruu have again?” He asked suddenly, pausing in the process of feeding the mimic stone to Violet, the candlestick looking like a staff in his free hand it due to his diminutive size.

“Air, water nature and life.” I told him listing them off on my fingers.

“Alright, feed that catalyst stone to Baruu. Since it’s a very rare item it should free up a slot and get an interesting advanced affinity.”

“Yeah?” Baruu floated closer to inspect the stone as I held it out for her. “What sorts?”

He shrugged at me as Baruu began nibbling at the stone. Once she was certain I was giving it to her to snack upon, she took it and skipped away on her clouds in case it was all a ruse and I was going to take it back from her. Strange little creature.

“No idea, it’s all really complex.” He set the stone and candle stick ack on the table beginning to tug at his beard. “Ultimately, it’s the game’s AI that decides it based on how the creature has lived up until it’s bonded and then how it had fought alongside it’s master.”

I raised a hand to stop him as a notification popped up informing me that Baruu had unlocked an advanced affinity, I read it aloud to Fizzle.

Congratulations

Baruu, your mist springer fawn has attained an advanced affinity based on the following combination:

Air and Water have combined into the Storm affinity. One or more missing affinities have been substituted.

I watched as Baruu looked up at the flurry of notification windows popping up in front of me so I nearly missed when she rose and began to sparkle as though in the throes of the monster death animation. Though rather than ascending, the lights began to spin around the vague shape of my little monster. As the seconds ticked by her form grew slightly. The dancing series of different coloured lights zoomed in once more and Baruu reappeared. She was larger now, as she floated over to me with a confused low. I gawked at her new appearance, her fleece was now predominantly near the mist and when I ran my hand across it I noted that it too was comprised of the same cloud stuff as her hind quarters, while still a soft white-grey, now blue lights sparked and sparkled within . I guessed this was the lightning abilities the stone had unlocked from Baruu’s air affinity. Her body was much more lithe and graceful, her neck had grown longer as had her little face, though she kept the same goat-like eyes as before. Her horns once two rocky nubs were now white with silvery etchings almost like scrimshaw in naturally spiralling patterns. They were also a good three inches longer than they had been before, the tips beginning to divide at the top as though she was growing antlers, like the deer species we had learned about as children in barely remembered pictures and video. She was beautiful, her now dark fur had taken on a velvety quality and was a faint blueish grey with dark mottled spot patterns. Something I had noticed after our resurrection in the Temple of Lil earlier had grown more pronounced. I checked the remaining notifications as Fizzle whistled appreciatively, Baruu was likely big enough for him to ride now.

Congratulations!

Baruu has increased a tier and is now a Storm-springer fawn.

She has learned the following spells:

Sleet storm:

AOE 30ft diameter circle.

All targets caught within the affected area are slowed and their stamina is depleted by ten percent for the duration of the spell.

Spell duration fifteen seconds.

Lightning bolt:

Deal fifteen points of lightning damage. The damage is doubled if the target is wearing metal or submerged in water, there is a small chance to paralyze the target for three seconds.

Baruu has gained the following traits

Swift: Baruu’s muscles and neural network are supercharged by the energy of the storm. Base movement and attack speed permanently increased by ten percent.

Electrical resistance

Electrical damage is reduced by half

Cold resistance

Cold damage is reduced by half

Wind resistance

Wind damage is reduced by half.

Baruu has one free affinity slot.

“She gained a tier and the Storm affinity.” I told him with a grin as the newly grown Baruu nuzzled her new weight into me demanding even more of my attention. I got a sense of smug satisfaction from the creature as we both took in her new looks. I turned to Fizzle and made a ‘move-it-along’ gesture; he huffed and picked up the mimic stone depositing it into Violet.

I watched her flare briefly as the stone was introduced, hungrily consumed by her eerie flames. She began to glow then, the light breaking apart and dancing in an entirely different pattern from when Baruu underwent her transformation. After a while, the lights spanned out into a spiralling disk before rushing towards the candlestick Fizzle had placed on the table. There was a bright flash and the three candles ignited with Violet’s purple blue flame. I watched fascinated as the little bronze woman stood herself up and looked at both Fizzle and I before going completely still. I stared in horrid fascination, previously, the candlestick had been a little unsettling, but it now had a downright creepy and predatory air to it. I understood mimics well enough from other games to know that they were ambush predators. I inspected Violet’s new form getting the usual name plate but now also her species classification.

Violet (Balefire Mimic), Level eight.

Fizzle reached out and gingerly lifted the mimic from the table. As its base left contact with the table I watched as the faux bronze flesh of the base undulated and withdrew like a mollusc into its shell. I curled my lip feeling a little unsettled at the sight, not really understanding why as Fizzle scrolled through Violet’s updated information.

“Alright we should log out for a bit, and later when Fiona is awake, we can see what we need to do to get back at those PKing dick bags. I’m going to look into this start zone, stuff like this just doesn’t happen. If there were more players, eventually they’d have all ganged up on them. I’ll ask around see what’s what.”

I nodded, then we returned to our individual rooms on the floor above. I settled into bed Baruu floated closer. Her smell had changed but not in a bad way I noted happily, as I lay back and began the log out sequence.