Vs the Rat Queen

“Fuck fuck fuck, run!” I say, already putting distance between myself and the majorly oversized rat. Mia stands her ground as the thing roars and charges, flanked by a few of its smaller subjects. I notice what she’s doing and turn back to try help her. I run towards her but the Queen gets there before I can.

Before it’s actually on top of her, it crashes and falls to the ground. Mia strains a little more and forces more gusts of air at it, moving it backwards and preventing both the Queen and the smaller rats from getting to her. She turns to me.

“Now this is a challenge!” She whoops cheerfully. “Mia we need a plan of attack!” “I have a plan. Attack.” She replies. I facepalm, recognising the reference and kicking myself for not realising my set up. She giggles triumphantly. “Relax, I can handle these things. You focus on not dying.” She says.

If I let her handle them on her own though, I miss out on the XP. Also I’d look like a pansy. “Hold on, let me try figure something out.” I say. “Don’t be long, I can handle these guys but I can’t hold them here for very long.” She says.

I click around on my character sheet a bit, trying to find what I’m looking for. “How do I invite Mia to a party?” I ask to nobody in particular as I look.

Invite sent successfully

Oh. That was easy. Apparently just saying it works. Mia looks at the air in front of her in surprise. “Is this part of your powers?” She asks. “Yep, can you accept the invite?” I ask. “How?” “Use your finger, click the button that says accept.” She pokes at the air and a new window pops up.

Party (null):

Gemma Rose

Mia Burgess

Why is it called party null? I guess because I didn’t give it a name? A question for another time. “Was that all you wanted to do?” Mia asks. “Can I fire spells at them without it breaking your hold?” I ask. She shrugs. “I have no idea, you can try though.”

I let off a couple of spells, managing to kill two of the smaller rats before Mia’s wind buffer breaks and the rats are free. I sprint away and she sweeps her arms up, gusts of wind carrying her out of reach. “You can fly?!” I ask. “I’m an air mage, of course I can fly! Not for too long though, so let’s beat this thing quick!”

I continue to sprint the other way, firing off more Mana Arrows over my shoulder. Mia raises herself up and slams down onto the Queen with something invisible. The Queen is stunned for a few seconds and I use the opportunity to fire some more spells, aiming to take out the rats around it. I manage to get all but one of them. With a roar, the Queen stands on its hind legs and swipes at Mia, taking her out of the air and sending her crashing into a nearby tree.

I run to her to make sure she’s okay, but she’s already getting up before I reach her. She dusts herself off and stands up, a cheerful, carefree smile on her face. “Are you okay?” I ask. She nods. “I’ve been through worse than being knocked into a tree.” She says. “How are you doing that? Like hitting the boss like that?” I ask.

“Solid air. I’m using my power to manipulate the air into forming a hard surface. You can use it for a lot of different things, including barriers, platforms and battering rams.” I think for a moment and an idea hits me, as the Queen once again roars and charges at us. “Keep hitting it from above to stun it, I’ll fire spells from down here!” I say. Mia nods and shoves me to the side, once more using gusts of wind to fly upwards.

I stumble, then keep moving, trying to avoid the Queen’s charge. It narrowly misses me and I fire more spells at the remaining small rat, killing it and retreating again from the Queen. I notice that I’m really close to a level up, but since I have no more smaller rats to kill, I’m not going to get any refill to help me with the Queen.

The Queen charges at me and just as it’s about to hit me, Mia crashes down on it with a wall of solid air, stunning it. I keep moving, unleashing more spells. My mana is running out, but I have to keep going.

Mia and I repeat this a few more times but I don’t have the mana to sustain it. I use the last of my mana bar and still the Queen is standing. “Fuck, Mia, I don’t have anymore mana!” I say, running desperately. She slams down on it once more and I do the only thing I can think of, running towards it and kicking it with everything I have. It barely seems to feel a thing and swipes at me. It knocks the wind out of me and sends me sailing into a tree.

Pain shoots up through my back and my entire body. I roll over, groaning as it charges at me again. Mia chases it but I can see she isn’t going to catch up quickly enough. I spot a thick branch out of the corner of my eye. I roll over and grab it, setting one end to the ground and holding it up as best I can.

The creature impales itself on the thick branch and my whole body shakes with the impact. It screeches, and a split second later, Mia catches up and slams another wall of solid air onto it. My mana has regenerated enough for one more spell and I use it, somehow managing to hit the creature right in it’s eye. It screeches again, weaker this time, before falling over and evaporating into white mist.

1500xp

LEVEL UP!

LEVEL UP!

Achievement unlocked: Boss!

You killed your first Boss, and you didn’t die! Congratulations, I’m happy you didn’t die. Watching you is kind of fun. Sort of.

Reward:

Isn’t the experience enough?

+25xp

I breathe a sigh of relief and slump over, resting for a moment. Mia sets herself down gently on the grass and sits down next to me. “Are you okay?” “Yeah, just need a second. You?” I ask. She nods. I take a couple of deep breaths, and my vitality returns to me surprisingly quickly. I sit up. “Huh. I feel fine.”

“Dude that rat hit you into a tree. I can shrug that off, but I didn’t think you could.” I check my HP and MP bars, then internally roll my eyes at myself for forgetting that they’d be fully refilled from the level ups.

The level ups! I have more points to spend! “I think it’s part of my powers. One of my abilities is called ‘Gamer’s Body’ and it makes my body like a video game character’s. The description did say that damage reduces my HP rather than wounding me. “That’s bullshit!” Mia exclaims. I laugh at her reaction. “I’m still not very powerful yet.” She looks at me.

“Yet. Sounds like you’ve got a pretty powerful ability. Don’t underestimate yourself.” She says. “Thank you.” I say, smiling in gratitude. I open my character sheet again. “Are you looking at another one of those windows?” She asks. I nod.

“You can’t see them at all?” I ask, trying to will a lesser version of the window to be visible to her. She shakes her head, then makes a slightly surprised noise. “Oh wait. I can see something now. It says your name, The Gamer and your level.” She says. I nod. “The Gamer is my title.”

Patch: party windows

Party members can now see lesser versions of your character sheet, as well as character sheets of their own. You can see all party members level and title.

I check Mia’s out of curiosity.

Mia Burgess

Lvl 18, student

Second Daughter of the Wind

“Second Daughter of the Wind?” I ask her. She nods. “I’ll explain some other time. I need to get home soon though.” Mia replies and I nod. “Give me a minute.” I say. I walk around to the small glowing silver patches on the ground, picking up all the loot. “What is that stuff?” She asks when she notices. “Loot from the rats.” I say.

“Loot? You mean those things dropped stuff?!” Mia asks incredulously. I nod, turning to face her. “Yeah, that’s not normal?” I question. “Dude what, no it’s normal! Okay listen, if you create a barrier with monsters in it, those monsters are created from nothing. So if it drops useful things, that means you’re creating useful things from nothing.” My eyes widen at that. “My power is creating money and crafting materials from nothing?!” I say. “Yes, you dingus. Bullshit!” She laughs. I shake my head, processing what she’s just said.

“Well alright then, that’s pretty fucking cool.” I say, finishing collecting the loot. I’ll look at it later at home. “Did you want some of the loot? You did a lot of the work after all.” I say. She shakes her head as we exit the barrier and start the walk back to the bus stop. “No it’s okay, I have enough back home. You need it more, you can keep it.” She says. “Thank you. You’re really sweet.” I reply, smiling at her. She smiles back and we fall silent. Neither one of us feels the need to continue the conversation at the moment. I figure the points distribution can wait until I’m home.

The bus ride back home is comfortable. We don’t talk much and I’m hoping she feels the same way as me. Comfortable. I get to thinking a little bit and decide to just ask her. “Hey Mia? I’m going to create my own guild, would you like to join?” I ask, keeping my voice low despite nobody else being on the bus. She thinks about it for a moment, then answers.

“Sure Gemma, why not? You seem good and you have a really interesting power. I don’t have many friends in the abyss, so it would be really nice to finally have one.” She responds. I grin at that.

“Awesome, alright. I was thinking ‘The Centurions’ as a name. What do you say?” I ask. “Dude that’s an awesome name, let me check real quick if it’s taken.” Mia gets her phone out and types rapidly into a search bar. She lands on a website that’s relatively simple in design, and has the words ‘Abysswide Guild Registry’ on it.

She types in the name I suggested and no results pop up. “How isn’t that taken yet? That’s a really cool name. Want to register now? Don’t worry about the fee, I’ll pay it.” She offers. I nod. “That would be amazing, thank you.” I say, trying my best to convey that I really appreciate her kindness.

We go through the steps to register our guild on the website, and it asks for a fingerprint scan of each member. Mia puts in her fingerprint, then I do mine. I ask her if I can lead the guild and she accepts, but gives me a warning before. “If you lead our guild in a bad direction, then I will leave. If we’re going to be a **** at all, I want to be a **** for good. Possibly chaotic good, but good nonetheless.” She says firmly, with a hint of that cheerful humour that I’ve come to know from her. I nod. “I wouldn’t want anything less.” I answer. Mia nods, and she clicks the button to finalise the registration.

Guild created: The Centurions

You are now the Guildmaster of The Centurions

Guild headquarters: N/A

Guild members are permanently in a party with each other, so long as they remain in the guild

Members (2/10):

Gemma Rose

Mia Burgess

Achievement unlocked: Guild!

You joined your first guild!

Reward:

+25xp

Achievement unlocked: Better Guild!

You created a guild! Lead it well!

Reward:

+25xp

“How much was that?” I ask. “Only about 5 thousand.” She replies, nonchalantly. “What the fuck, 5 thousand dollars?” “Yeah stuff in the abyss is expensive. Things work a little differently here, if you follow.” “Yeah I can see that.” I return. The bus slows down and Mia starts to get up. “This is my stop. I’ll invite you over another day, there’s some stuff I gotta sort out today.” She says, smiling at me.

“We’ll figure out some stuff about the guild tomorrow at school. Thank you for being my friend.” She gives me a brief hug, then walks down the aisle and gets off the bus. I’m too socially inept to say anything back, so I just wave goodbye and smile at her, hoping I don’t look too stupid. She waves back, and I can tell that her smile is genuine.