And then I was back, reawakening in my body as we walked the all-too-familiar trek to the Faerie village, an hour before I died.
“That fucking bitch!” I cursed the moment I had a mouth again.
Erani looked at me, wide-eyed. “Sorry?”
“No, not you,” I sighed. “Gods fucking damn this shit. Wouldn’t be surprised if that bitch crawled her way up from the bottom hell.”
“...That’s a lot of blasphemy you’re doing over there. Something going on? Time Loop? I thought you just got back from the last timeline, like, five minutes ago.”
“Yeah, shit went down,” I took a breath, trying to calm myself. The Queene seriously had to interfere? We were there. We were about to win. How were we even supposed to pass this dumbass test of hers if she refused to play fair? And really? She spoke the Nymph’s language? Of course, don’t use that to help us communicate better with it, or to establish better trade connections. Purely use that to kill us. Great. Fucking phenomenal.
While I continued to mentally curse the Queene, Erani went on guard at my confirmation that something had gone wrong. She looked around and raised her hands, preparing to cast a Spell. “What is it? An attack?”
“No, no,” I clarified. “I’m from an hour ahead. Nothing right now.”
“Oh. What happened? Did you die again?”
I sighed, frustrated with the fact that I had to explain the events of the most recent loop when I’d just gone through explaining everything. Erani hadn’t done anything wrong, though, so I tried not to direct any of that frustration at her.It seemed like I’d ended up going back to a few minutes after I’d gotten back before, so Erani did know about our first attempt, when I was stabbed in the back, but didn’t know about our second attempt, when we actually fought Aankin. This day felt like it had gone on forever. Which, it had been a couple hours longer than temporally possible, so I guessed that was appropriate.
“Yeah, I died again,” I finally said.
“The plan we made didn’t work? Teaming up on Aankin with the Nymph?”
“The Nymph was kind of the problem,” I said, and went on to explain what had happened in the previous timeline.
By the time I was done, Erani had her lips pursed. “So, if we lose, we die, but if we’re winning, she’ll just make sure we lose.”
“And die.”
“...That’s unfortunate.”
“Pretty much. And it’s not like we can even tell the Nymph what’s gonna happen and have it react better to the Slimes,” I gestured to the Nymph, who was entertaining itself by weaving together a rudimentary doll out of sticks and leaves as we spoke. “It can’t understand us. So, no matter what, the Queene can always distract it.”
“And you’re sure we can’t handle Aankin without the Nymph’s help?”
“Well, that’s part of the problem, but even if we can kill him without the Nymph, the Queene can just do something else. Who’s to say she won’t just throw in a few more soldiers if we do too well? Or that Aankin won’t just be reborn and come and attack us again if we kill him?”
“Wait, what? Reborn?”
“Oh, yeah, I didn’t mention that. Apparently Aankin doesn’t even care if he does die, because he’s got a dozen more bodies waiting for his spirit to take them over or something. So, if we kill him, he’ll just possess a new person and be totally fine.”
“...Huh.”
“Yeah. A bit of a fucking predicament.”
“No, no. I think we can use that.”
“What?”
“C’mon, let’s get walking. I’ll explain while we go.”
By the time we’d arrived at the Faerie Village once again, I’d heard Erani’s plan and was on-board with it. It was risky, especially for her – almost uncharacteristically so, to the point where she was the one who had to convince me to go through with it. But maybe it wasn’t that it was risky, and more that we had no truly safe options. I mean, what else could we do? Just try the exact same thing once again and see if it worked?
Still, I wasn’t a fan of it. I’d just have to trust that we knew these Faeries as well as we thought we did, and I really didn’t like putting my life in the hands of strangers.
I contemplated how much I didn’t like our plan as I scaled a tree at the edge of the village. At this point, I’d gotten to the point where the branches were almost too thin to hold my weight, and I looked down at the unaware Aankin who was still guarding the gate. My boosted Strength and Dexterity helped me climb, the action much easier than it’d seemed when I’d still been on the ground.
Venom is coursing through your veins. 1 damage.
Your Health is 19.
The poison definitely added some challenge to the climbing, though. The ascent had taken enough time that my Health had fallen pretty low, and I was beginning to feel anxious. That anxiety may have just been coming from the ground that was far below me, though. I hoped the plan to break my fall actually worked, here.
Damage dealt from falling was generally pretty consistent, as long as you understood how to minimize it. As long as you took the correct steps and landed with your legs bent, rolling out of the impact, it wouldn’t be too severe. Even if you were falling out of a tree. Considering the height, I was pretty confident that I could survive this, even with my current Health. Plus, I had something to cushion the impact.
We had to do it this way, otherwise we were doomed to fail. We knew that Aankin was an even match – if not the favored combatant – against the three of us, and if things took too long, he’d just get reinforcements. It would be quick, dirty, and dangerous.
I looked behind myself and, from my vantage point, saw Erani and the Nymph, who were both waiting far back, out of Aankin’s sight, so as to not blow my cover. I held out a hand in the signal we’d agreed on, meaning ‘I’m about to go, get ready.’ She nodded.
I took a breath. I really did not want to do this.
“Okay. Just let go,” I muttered to myself. “Just let go of the branches, and let your feet slip. Just–”
I fell.
I looked down as the wind whipped across my face and through my hair, trying to ignore the urge to scream. I was headed straight down toward Aankin, hurdling downward at a speed I did not want to be going at.
But I could go faster.
I activated Gravity Well, targeting myself, and suddenly found the air pulling on me much harder. My speed increased faster and faster as I fell downward at the unsuspecting Faerie Champion, until–
You have crashed into something. 14 damage.
Your Health is 5.
You have struck Level 29 Faerie Champion for 19 damage using your Body.
Your leg has been broken.
My body impacted Aankin’s and a sickening crack sounded alongside an intense pain in my left shin, sending an electric jolt through my entire body. This time I did scream, which harmonized with Aankin’s own shouts of surprise and pain quite well.
With my body fully entangled with his, I activated Noxious Grasp and cast Crippling Chill on him, trying to add to the disorientation he must have been feeling right now.
You have cursed Level 29 Faerie Champion with Crippling Chill. For the next 15 seconds, he loses 7.76 Health and 6.21 Stamina each second, and his Dexterity score is lowered by 15.5.
56.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 519.
He groaned and tried to swat at me, but part of me was under him, part of me was on top of him, my arms were entangled with his, and my leg was bent in a couple different directions – fucking ouch, by the way – so he obviously wasn’t sure where I was. Hells, even I didn’t know where my body was. The intense pain from my leg enveloped my mind. I knew it would be possible for something like that to happen when I agreed to the plan – my Health was so low that just about any serious impact could break a bone – but the feeling of nails in my muscle and lava in my marrow was not something I had quite understood beforehand.
I located my hand and put it up against him, gritting my teeth as my body shifted and caused another spike of pain to shoot through my leg. My palm pressed firmly against his head, I cast Ray of Frost.
You have struck Level 29 Faerie Champion for 54 damage using Ray of Frost.
You have cursed Level 29 Faerie Champion with Ray of Frost. For the next 5 seconds, his Dexterity score is lowered by 6.7.
23.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 526.
With my hand already touching my target, there was no beam – just a layer of rime that rapidly spread across his face and a sudden drop of temperature in the surface I was touching. My newly-Ranked-up Spell lowered his Dexterity even more, and I could both see and feel his flailing movements slow.
I shot Aankin again and again, each Ray dealing the maximum 54 damage it could deal due to the perfect aim that came with point-blank range, and each one causing him to yell and try to get me off him again and again. And, of course, since we were outside the walls of the village, there was no Queene here to interfere.
Eventually, once my Mana dropped all the way down to 270, Aankin managed to draw his knife from its sheath, which was my cue to head out. My Health was, in fact, at 5, so it definitely wouldn’t be a good idea to stick around when my enemy had a weapon in his hand.
I quickly untangled my body from his, once again fighting the urge to scream in pain as I dragged my limp leg out from under Aankin’s large body. Once I got away from him, I got a notification.
You have struck Level 29 Faerie Champion for 204 damage and drained 206 Stamina over the course of 12.6 seconds using Noxious Grasp.
59.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 211.
And as I got to my feet – or foot, really, my broken leg not allowing me to put any weight on my left foot – I got another notification.
Crippling Chill has worn off of Level 29 Faerie Champion.
You have struck Level 29 Faerie Champion for 116 damage and drained 93 Stamina over the course of 15 seconds using Crippling Chill.
With all the damage added up, I’d done close to a thousand damage to Aankin. Just how much Health did he have? I re-cast Crippling Chill, bringing my Mana solidly below 200, and looked over to thankfully see Erani and the Nymph arriving on the battlefield, ready to fight. I was much too low on Health and Mana to continue on my own.
An Explosive Firebolt blasted the Stamina-drained, Dexterity-sapped Champion away, smacking him against the wooden palisade. And then the Nymph got ahold of him, lashing over and over at the man cornered against the wall, the whip cutting into his skin now that his Health was too low to protect him from the high-speed strikes. I almost felt bad for him.
But then Aankin made a sudden movement, batting away the whip as he finally seemed to get over his confusion, and stumbling to a standing position. He shook his long hair out of his face, which revealed a large grin.
“Finally! A true challenge!” He slammed his fist into his hand. “I haven’t felt like this in decades! Let’s go!”
Yeah, nevermind. I didn’t feel bad for him.
He sprinted forward, somehow invigorated after taking so much punishment, and slammed a fist into the off-guard Nymph, sending it stumbling back and falling to the ground a few paces away. Erani shot a Firebolt at him at the same time that I shot off a Ray of Frost, but he ducked and dodged them both. He adjusted his grip on his knife and took a wild swipe at Erani, but she blocked with an arm, the blade glancing off the glowing matrix of Angelic Shield that protected her.
I shot twice more with Ray of Frost as Aankin was thrown off-balance by the unexpected wall preventing him from hitting her, and these rays hit, renewing the Dexterity draining effect and slowing him down to a more manageable level.
You have struck Level 29 Faerie Champion for 48 damage using Ray of Frost.
You have cursed Level 29 Faerie Champion with Ray of Frost. For the next 5 seconds, his Dexterity score is lowered by 6.7.
23.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 109.
You have struck Level 29 Faerie Champion for 52 damage using Ray of Frost.
You have cursed Level 29 Faerie Champion with Ray of Frost. For the next 5 seconds, his Dexterity score is lowered by 6.7.
23.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 85.
He must’ve had some sort of Talent or ability that raised his Stats when he was at low Health. Berserkers had Talents like that, and even Swordsmen had paths they could go down to get those types of effects, so it wasn’t a surprise that a monster could get one, too. But, if that was the case, then it must’ve meant he was close to death, too. And with Venomous Grasp causing the double-Stamina-draining effect, there was no way he could keep up with this frantic melee fighting style, either.
Erani backed away, taking advantage of his stun from the two Spells impacting him, and shot off an Explosive Firebolt of her own. It punched Aankin away, sending him tumbling back to the ground, and as he tried to get back up, slowed by the multiple curses and low pool of Stamina, she shot him again. And again, and again, using the same method to keep him constantly stunned and off his feet that she’d used on the Anacaps all those days ago.
It wouldn’t have worked on him at the beginning of the fight – his Health pool would be too large to allow him to be thrown around like that, and his Stamina would be high enough to allow him to move away before the next Firebolt hit him – but now he was finally weak enough for it to work. After many echoing booms and ground-shaking explosions, I finally got the notification I was waiting for.
You have offered moderate contribution toward the slaying of Level 29 Faerie Champion.
You have earned 377 XP. Your XP is 633.
Threshold reached. 600 XP.
Your Level has increased to 11.
Due to achieving Level 11 in the Minute Mage Class, you have been granted the following benefits:
-You have gained 1 Endurance.
-You have gained 2 Conjuration.
-You have gained 1 Intelligence.
-You have gained 3 Stat Points.
-Recursive Growth has activated. You have gained 1 Strength, 1 Endurance, 1 Conjuration, and 1 Intelligence.
-Time Loop Talent Rank has increased to 11.
Intelligence threshold reached. 12 Intelligence.
Your Intelligence information rank has increased.
Due to increasing your Intelligence information rank, you have been granted the following benefits:
-When choosing Spells, you may now see the Spell Schools of the Spells that will be offered to you the next time you get to choose one of them if you pick any given option.
I took a breath as I looked over the Level-up notification – and subsequent Intelligence threshold notification – presented to me. But before I had time to celebrate, I heard a creaking sound as the gigantic wooden gate began to open. Someone must’ve been turning the wheel from the inside after hearing the many sounds of our battle with Aankin.
We’d completed step one of our plan – kill the guard. Here came the hard part.
Venom is coursing through your veins. 1 damage.
Your Health is 4.
I walked up to the opening gate, arms held out wide as if asking for applause as I approached the many citizens staring at me from within. I tried to hide my intense pain and exhaustion, and the fact that I was limping on a broken leg.
“Hi there,” I announced with a fake confident smile. “We just killed your Champion.”