New Guild Member

Mia can’t hold it in any longer and cackles. “Gaia, give the poor girl a break!” Ivy strolls towards us, with Skylar following close behind. “Sorry hun, she’s too adorable.” Ivy says teasingly. Skylar shakes her head at our girlfriends. Paige twitches at the healer’s words. Ivy holds her hand out to the earth elemental. “I’m Ivy, lovely to meet you.” She says.

Paige, the shorter one of the two of them by about twenty centimetres, looks up at the tall and beautiful artificial spirit. She takes her hand and shakes it shyly. “H-hi, lovely to meet you too.” She says, managing to speak despite her being extremely flustered by the situation. Ivy steps back to let Skylar introduce herself.

Skylar in kind, holds out her hand the same way Ivy did. “I’m Skylar. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.” She reassures, smiling at the newcomer. Paige smiles in return, her blush slightly receding. “Thank you.” She plays with her hair nervously and I can’t help but die a little inside. This girl is so ridiculously cute and I want nothing more at this moment than to hold her in my arms and stroke her hair gently.

“Want a tour of the palace?” Mia asks. Paige looks back at the large structure, her eyes lighting up. “Yes please! It’s really pretty, how did you even build it?” Mia puts an arm around Paige and starts to lead her into the palace. She looks back and winks at us as they walk, then starts to tell the gothic earth elemental about the barrier.

Ivy, Skylar and I hang back and watch the two of them disappear inside. “Gaia she’s adorable.” I say. Ivy giggles. “She really is.” “You two are mean.” Skylar says, smiling. “Oh? You like her already?” I tease. “Don’t pretend like you don’t like her. Something about her…I don’t know. Gives me a good feeling.” Skylar replies.

“Would you be okay with her staying the night in one of the guest rooms?” I ask, and Skylar snaps her head up in surprise. “I might be getting a good feeling about her but that seems a little quick, and maybe not the best of ideas.” She says. “Think of it this way: the last time I saw her, she was level 15. I’m not sure how much stronger she’s gotten since then, but given that, there’s really not a lot she could do to hurt us.” I reason.

Skylar sighs. “Only if you observe her first. I think we should know for sure what her power levels are and her intentions or feelings towards us.” “Observe doesn’t show everything. We shouldn’t rely on it as a lie detector.” I warn. “I know. But I’ll feel better if you do it anyway.” She says. I nod, then turn to Ivy. “Would you be okay with her staying the night?” I ask her.

“Why are you asking that question?” She asks, grinning at me. “Because I know Mia well enough to know that she’s probably going to ask Paige if she wants to stay the night, and I figured I’d get ahead of it.” I say. Ivy shrugs, still grinning. “Fair point. You already know my answer.” I sigh and smile back. “She is pretty cute.”

“So cute! I don’t understand, she’s all goth and hot, she has one of her arms covered in tattoos. She fully embraces the scary goth aesthetic, but she’s so shy, at least around us! She’s so adorable.” Ivy gushes and I giggle. “Wow you’ve been researching more into slang.” I tease and she shrugs. “Had to, to understand how you and Mia talk.”

We walk inside the palace and find that Mia is just finishing up the tour. “What do ya think?” Mia asks. “It’s very pretty!” Paige replies. “This is where we’ll be hanging out in between training, if you end up wanting to join our guild.” Mia says, looking at us and smiling. Paige looks back at us and smiles shyly. “Yeah um actually…about that…I-I was wondering if I could join your guild now?”

Mia looks at me for my response, given that I’m the guild leader. Paige follows suit. “Would you let me observe you first? It’s a spell that I have that reveals information about people. I’ll be able to see your emotions and power level among other things, as well as whether or not you have bad intentions.” I explain. She blushes slightly and smiles at me. “Sure. I have nothing to hide.” She replies.

I smirk as I read the relationship box. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Paige looking at the ground and turning even redder. She begins to play with hair as I scan the rest of her observe sheet. “No red flags here. Level 18.” I report and Mia slaps her on the back. “Oof girl, we have a lot of work to do.” She says cheerily, and Paige looks up worriedly.

“Is level 18 bad?” She asks. “It’s above average I think, but you’re also the lowest level here.” I tell her. Her head drops slightly and I speak to her gently. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. That’s what we train for.” I tell her, and she lifts her head again, and smiles at me. “Thank you.” She says earnestly.

“Any objections to Paige joining our guild?” I ask, looking at my girlfriends. Each of them shakes their head, and so I look back at Paige. “Awesome. We can always use more people. You’re in.” I tell her, sending her the guild invitation. Her smile broadens. “Yes!” She exclaims and I giggle. “You’re cute.” I tell her, as she looks over the window that pops up. She blushes again and hits the accept button.

Sweet! I quickly spend my new statpoints, as well as the statpoints Ivy got for levelling up with me, on our strength stat. Ivy is now at 30 strength and I just got to 50, triggering another window.

Unfortunately no other bonus besides a health regeneration scaling increase, which is still pitiful compared to Ivy’s healing, but it’s okay. The stat being increased is the main benefit here. Deciding that I’m going to work on getting intellect to 100, I close our character sheets and turn to Mia. “Ivy and I have a pair of kittens to get-”

Ivy squeals as I say that and I giggle at her. I kiss her on the cheek. “You’re so cute!” I tell her. “Love you honey.” She returns, kissing me on the forehead. I turn back to Mia who is grinning at the scene. “We’ll go and buy them now. Maybe help Paige get a bit more comfortable around here while we’re gone?” I ask. Paige blushes and hides her face behind her hands.

Mia smirks and nods. I lean in closer and kiss my girlfriend gently on the lips before whispering in her ear. “She’s definitely interested in us, even I can tell, and the observe sheet said so. Don’t make any moves yet though. And Skylar and Ivy have already said they’re okay if you wanna invite her to stay the night.” I tell her.

“You know me so well.” She whispers back, kissing me on the cheek. I giggle happily, give her a quick hug, then separate. “Love you babe.” I tell her, before going to Skylar and giving her a kiss on the lips too. “I love you. Be safe.” She says, massaging me worriedly. “I love you too. We’ll do our best.” I tell her.

Ivy says her goodbyes while Paige continues to hide. “You said the place you know is quite close to here?” I ask Ivy, as we walk out of the palace. “It’s within walking distance.” She confirms. “Perfect. Give me a second, I want to spend my class level before we go.” I tell her. “Fine, but hurry up!” She pouts and I giggle.

I went with the gamer class because I don’t fully have the mana to use all of my new offensive spells yet. I decided this class might be good in the hopes that it would speed up my progression and I’m immediately rewarded for the decision. A loot barrier would be useful, the loot chance upgrade could help a bit but neither compare in the slightest to a stat scaling increase, especially since I get 51 free stats to use immediately.

I click on the stat scaling increase option, then open my character sheet. I put 50 of the new points into intellect, and after a thought, I put the remaining single point into endurance. The unbalanced stat sheet is annoying me but the bright side is that my mana bar is substantially increased. Three windows pop up.

Holy shit those are some juicy rewards! Checking my character sheet, my maximum mana has now gone all the way up to 1304MP, and my mana regen is now at 2.1MP per second! The cost for keeping Ivy summoned, now being at 5% of my mana regen is also up to 0.11 per second, leaving my effective mana regeneration at 1.99MP per second.

I’m really happy with these numbers. I’m looking forward to testing it tomorrow but I should be able to throw out spells a lot easier and more frequently now. Getting my mana regeneration even higher so I can throw out basically infinite spells would be a dream, and already I can throw out icicle and freezing blast every second or two.

I’m sure once I get more powerful spells, I won’t be able to keep that up. It would be a dream but we’ll see what happens. For now, my next goal in statpoints is to get my endurance up to 50. After that, I can see what happens. I turn my attention back to Ivy. “I just got some pretty amazing upgrades. I’m done now though, and I believe it’s time to go kitten shopping.”