Pyromancy And Paige

“Paige says that she can be here around 3.” Mia chimes in, reading off her phone. “Perfect okay. I reckon we train before she gets here, show her around, hopefully she joins our guild, and we can get our new kittens in the evening. We should have enough time for one dungeon run.” I say. With no objections from my guild, I reach into my inventory and pull out the book I just remembered I bought yesterday.

“Yes!” I exclaim. Apparently since I’ve finally gotten access to the class system and the cryomancy class, which I’m guessing is what it meant about ‘mastering an element’, I can finally learn some pyromancy. I click the yes button on the window and the book disappears. Another three windows pop up in its place.

“What happened?” Skylar asks, confused about my reaction. “Well…” I start, conjuring a fireball in my hand and watching it crackle excitedly, before loosing the spell at a nearby tree, instinctively feeling that I can. It dissipates and the tree is left without any sort of mark. “I just learnt basic fire magic.” I proclaim proudly. “Bullshit.” Mia groans and I giggle. “Want to go through a dungeon then?” I ask.

Sparing ourselves the new enemy types for the moment due to time constraints, we go back in with the old reliable, the giant rats dungeon. I spend the time testing out all of my new skills. The conclusion I come to is that I definitely need more mana and a higher regen to be able to use everything as much as I want to.

My new skills are awesome! Mana shield chews through my mana bar really quickly like nothing else, and I learn quickly to have it switched off if I want to use my mana for anything else. I’ll need to spend some time power levelling that skill if I can, otherwise it’s not going to be very useful.

Mana chain helps me control engagements, and is especially useful for when the rat tries to retreat or avoid me. As I hoped and especially thanks to my increased strength, I can pull off some Mortal Kombat style shenanigans. Pulling a rat towards me and off balance only to embed my axe in its head is so incredibly satisfying.

The rats also do not like fire damage. Fireball is pretty effective against them, as it appears that their fur is somewhat flammable. They don’t light up like they’ve had gasoline poured on them, but through the pitch of the sounds they make, it’s easy to tell that they’re more **** to this than frost damage.

Ice bolt is also a fun addition, making it even easier to dictate the pace of engagements. It’s cool, but nothing super remarkable. I find that my mixed martial arts passive is very useful in small ways. It adds to my axe mastery skill, allowing me to be even more proficient in melee combat, helping me understand the best ways to utilise all the tools at my disposal.

It’s an exhilarating feeling and I give myself completely to the fight. I let go of all thought and let instinct take over. The hacking and slashing of the blade of my axe, the twin elemental magic of fire and ice, the arcane spells to support it, the knowledge of how to act and the will to win. All of this combines to form a formidable opponent to the rats. They stand no chance.

I feel unstoppable.

It’s not long before the fight is over, and the boss is defeated. I don’t even really remember the boss spawning in. I blink a few times as I come out of my trance, looking over at my girlfriends. “Are you okay Gem?” Mia asks. I nod, taking a few moments to process everything that just happened. “I’m okay hun. I just had a moment there.” I say, smiling at her.

“Looked like more than a moment. I don’t know what happened, but you were doing most of the work that fight.” Skylar says, smiling proudly. “We barely did a thing. You were so focused, you’re amazing babe!” Ivy giggles, kissing me on the cheek. I blush slightly. “Thank you loves. I’m not sure what happened either. Something just sorta clicked and I was in the zone for a bit there.”

5000xp

I’m stunned as I check the total amount of XP gained from the dungeon. That’s double what it was before level 50. Levelling up is going to be a lot easier for a bit now! That massive reward gets me most of the way towards level 51, although I’ll still need one more run to get over the line. The new monetary reward is nice too, coming in at $100,000. Celebrating happily at our new prospects, we exit the dungeon.

It’s 2:30PM, so we don’t have a lot of time until Paige gets here. We use the shower in our new bathroom for the very first time, to clean the remnants of battle off of us. In the process, we find that the shower easily has enough room for the four of us, with a ton of space to spare. It’s absolutely gigantic, and fitting something like ten people in here does not seem out of the question.

We manage to (mostly) avoid lewd things while we shower, one again due to time constraints. We dry off and get dressed, getting ready to meet Paige. It’s decided that Mia and I will go to meet her, since I need to be able to take them both inside the Kingdom, and because Paige already knows Mia.

From what Mia has said, Paige is a bit socially cautious but mostly she’s shy. We don’t want to overwhelm her with all four of us at once, which is why we all decide that it’s a better idea for Skylar and Ivy to stay inside the Kingdom barrier. Mia receives a text from Paige saying that she’s here, and Mia and I exit into the Fateweaver barrier.

As we enter the Fateweaver barrier, with our exit point thankfully being on a footpath instead of in the middle of the parking lot where a car could hit us, we look around for where Paige is. We spot her out the front of the Fateweaver building. The raven haired gothic beauty is every bit as stunning as I remember her to be. I put my admiration and lust aside for now. Business first, pleasure later.

Mia calls out to her, and she turns and smiles at us. We walk towards her and she plays with her hair, twirling the tips of her long black locks between her fingers as she watches us approach her. She fidgets around slightly, smiling and clearly unsure of exactly what to do.

Mia gives her a hug, which Paige readily returns. “Hey! How’ve you been?” Mia asks cheerily. “Good thanks, how about you?” She returns in a quiet voice, low in volume but happy in tone. “Pretty great! This is one of my girlfriends, Gemma.” Mia responds, introducing me, putting an arm around me and kissing me on the cheek.

“Hi!” I say, waving awkwardly. She waves back, giggling. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m excited to meet all of you.” Paige says, her fingers not having stopped twirling her hair gently since she first saw us. “Ivy and Skylar are great. I need to ask you though, are you okay if we pull you into a barrier?” I ask. She looks confused. “We’re already in the Fateweaver barrier though?” “You’ll see what I mean.” I respond.

She hesitantly nods, slightly confused. “I also need you to join our party before we go in.” I mention, sending her a party invite. She looks at the window that appears in front of her, growing more confused by the second. “I…knew you had gamer powers, but this is weird. It looks very pretty though.” She says, giggling in embarrassment as she realises what she said. She taps the yes button, and I pull all three of us into the Kingdom barrier.

Paige stumbles off balance as the entire world changes around her, having not been ready for such a change. Through experimentation, we learnt that I can’t pull anybody in without their consent, so this can’t be used like a trap barrier. So even though she mentally consented to this, I can guess she didn’t expect something so vastly different.

She regains her balance and looks around in awe at the beautiful landscape, the palace in particular catching her eye. “This…what is this? It’s…it’s so cool!” Paige manages to get out, before noticing Ivy and Skylar. “Oh, hi! I uh…wow…I didn’t expect you both to be so pretty…” She blushes beet red as she realises what she’s just said. This adorable human’s mouth works faster than her brain, and I am enamoured.

Skylar blushes slightly, and gives her a small smile, not entirely sure how to react. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mia stifling a giggling fit. Ivy for her part, smiles flirtatiously at her. “That’s really cute, coming from a woman as beautiful as you.” She says smoothly and Paige blushes even harder. She looks at the ground and hides her face adorably behind her hands. “Oops…”