Chapter 33 - Fantasia - 82 free novel

Chapter 33

:Eugh.: Fey’s party made slow progress through the water, returning to Pearlview in a much more disreputable state than it had left in.

Taxi dolphins usually lingered where they dropped off their passengers in order to collect a return fare, but the trio of dolphins the group had hired to take them to the nomfish territory had immediately returned to Pearlview after dropping them off.

This should have been an obvious warning, but Fey, Blade, and Sirena had persisted on their quest to hunt 500 nomfish.

It turned out that the reason nomfish had such wide mouths was to accommodate the excessive number of shark-like teeth they had.

(“Nom” is short for ‘omnomnom’.) When provoked, the entire school of carnivorous fish had attacked like hungry piranhas.

As with many species (and people), nomfish were a lot cuter when they kept their mouths shut.

Sirena poked mournfully at a tear in her mage robes.

Two warriors (well, one warrior and a Fey) had been insufficient to keep all of the nomfish away from her.

Her clothing and flesh had suffered as a result; it said something about her priorities that she mourned the clothing more.

:I need to up my Concentration: she sighed.

While taking eight seconds to cast a spell had seemed fast against the giant lobsters, Charge Jolt’s minimum cast time of 2.8 seconds had seemed far too long in the face of the fast-moving nomfish.

“You already did, didn’t you?” asked Blade.

Applying some the attribute points from levelling up towards Concentration, Sirena could now cast Charge Jolt in 2.4 seconds.

(This had also seemed far too long in the face of the fast-moving nomfish.) :We should have bought armour: Fey lamented (see Chapter 30 to review the unwise decision), joining in on Sirena’s self-pity fest.

Her wetsuit had not been enough to keep nomfish teeth away from her skin.

“Aww, cheer up,” said Blade.

“We finished the quest and levelled up, didn’t we? Sirena even gained two levels.” Blade, Fey, and Sirena were now level 25, 24, and 23, respectively.

If anything, the human warrior was even more tattered than his party mates, having taken up his meatshield (*cough* we mean ‘tank’) duties with seriousness, despite not having been told it was his role.

:We should have gone after the electric eels: Fey continued gloomily.

She was not a person who let some optimistic encouragement get in the way of a good pity-fest.

(Whining childishly was one of her favourite hobbies.) “Come on,” Blade coaxed.

“Your glooms even learned a new skill.” Despite herself, Fey smiled.

:They did, didn’t they?: She glanced fondly at her adorably vicious shadow-pets, which now consisted of one rabbit-eared mermaid, two swimming torpedos, two shadow-dolphins, and an inky nomfish.

The glooms had figured out that the safest way to kill the nomfish while staying away from their teeth was to seal the nomfishes’ gills shut, depriving them of oxygen.

Thus, Suffocate had been born.

Obsidian swam over, temporarily grew arms to give Fey a hug, then darted off again (as a torpedo).

:Love you too: Fey called after her pet.

Compared to her earlier expression, she was now smilingly cheerful.

Her somewhat sudden shift in demeanour was not a sign of emotional instability; rather, she had not been particularly upset in the first place (she just enjoyed whining).

Seeing that she had lost her comrade-in-self-pity, Sirena also adopted a more cheerful mien (after one last sigh over her damaged clothes).

She gave the captured Ebony an extra hugging squeeze.

Ebony wiggled slightly in a feeble attempt to escape, but had mostly resigned herself to her fate as a living stuffed animal.

(Psst.

Shadow-bunny.

If you shift to the cave-spider shape, the mermaid will probably let you go.) As the sun set in the game world, visibility underwater became very poor.

:How does anyone play underwater at night?: Fey asked.

Even with elven night vision, she could tell that she would have trouble seeing when the sun set completely.

:A lot of monsters are bioluminescent: Sirena answered.

:Still, it’s a good idea to stay near town after dark.: “Why?” asked Blade.

Sirena met a question with a question.

:Ever heard of anglerfish?: “Uh, maybe?” The term sounded vaguely familiar to Blade.

:Scary deep-sea fish that use a lantern-like appendage to lure prey to them: Fey summarized.

:Fun fact: several species of anglerfish practice sexual parasitism, where the male fuses with the female and is basically reduced to a sperm source.: “…Cool.” Blade did not really think that Fey’s fact was particularly fun (more like ‘super creepy’).

:Yeah, a fun fact would be something along the lines of ‘there was an anglerfish in Finding Nemo’: Sirena commented dryly.

:To-may-to, to-mah-to: said Fey, dismissing the gentle correction with a wave of her hand.

:Anyways: Sirena continued.

:Anglerfish aren’t restricted to low depths in this ocean.

They’re also a lot bigger, and have lures that look exactly like low-level jellyfish.: :Ooh, jellyfish.

Are they cute?: asked Fey.

:I wouldn’t exactly call them cute.

They’re gelatinous masses with tentacles full of neurotoxic stingers.: Sirena replied.

:I wanna see!: Fey exclaimed (childishly).

Apparently, Sirena’s description of the jellyfish was appealing to her.

Sirena shrugged (after so many years, she was no longer surprised at her friend’s antics).

:Sure, they’re on the way back to town.: “But…” Blade protested, trailing off as he was met with two grinning faces.

:Were you perhaps about to point out that we’re going to visit jellyfish at night after being warned about giant anglerfish with jellyfish-like lures?: Fey asked mischievously.

“I…” Blade had indeed been about to point out the danger, but seeing the girls’ ‘laugh in the face of a possible gruesome death’ attitude, the words would not come out.

In real life, of course, Arwyn and Leah took much more care with their lives and health.

They avoided dark alleyways, secondhand smoke, even jaywalking (unless they were really late).

In the game, Fey and Sirena were much more blasé about risking life and limb in the pursuit of amusement, never confusing the 99% realism of Fantasia with real life.

(Considering everything that’s happened, though, somebody should really ask the game developers how exactly they had come up with their 99% value.) :It’ll be fine: Sirena reassured Blade.

:If the anglerfish really does come, we can just feed it a newbie and escape.: “You’re kidding, right?” he asked.

Sirena splayed her fingers and rotated her wrist back and forth in a ‘so-so’ gesture, the action prominently displaying the translucent webbing between her fingers.

:Ehhh, kind of.

I wouldn’t throw a newbie at it unless there was no other way to get away.: Swimming along as they conversed, a faint pink glow became visible in the distance.

It soon resolved into a swarm of pink jellyfish.

Of the sea nettle variety, each jellyfish had a round bell with long, neurotoxin-filled tentacles trailing delicately from its edges.

From its centre extended thicker, whitish oral arms.

The jellyfish varied in size, but most had tentacles much longer than Fey was tall.

:Aww: Fey swam over for a closer look while Sirena and Blade hung a safe distance back.

The jellyfish were set at level 3 because of their extremely slow movement speed, but being sufficiently stung by the tentacles could cause death even for high-level players.

Fey carefully poked a jellyfish on its neurotoxin-free cap.

90% water, the jellyfish offered very little resistance to her finger and caved in easily.

:Hee hee.: (Our heroine is easily amused.) :Having fun over there?: Sirena called out.

:Yup!: Fey called back cheerfully.

Her inner nine-year-old was once again in charge of her body.

A tiny jellyfish drifted by, its tentacles the length of one of Fey’s fingers.

:Aww: Fey cooed, cupping her hand around the tiny cnidarian (1)and manipulating the water currents so it would not drift away.

:I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine: she said, quoting Dory’s line from Finding Nemo.