World of Fantasy

Lost Quill Quest

Jane had no time to look and see what had caused Winnie's distress. Right now, she had a spear-wielding Scarlet Shadow, whatever that was, to deal with. Gold Crusade; Scarlet Shadows. These criminal organizations sure loved giving themselves fancy labels.

Winnie cried out, "Help me!"

But Jane couldn't. She forged her way forward through the water and brown morass about her legs, pushing against the spearwoman, refusing to give her enough room to use that weapon.

The spearwoman, who was thankfully lower level and not that smart, didn't fight back with her fists. She kept backing up, trying to give herself space to use her spear, only banging the haft against Jane's arm and side.

Jane's stamina was draining as fast as usual, but she chipped away at the other woman's health almost as quickly.

The spearwoman slipped and went down on her back.

With a thrill of opportunity found, Jane leapt atop her in order to hold her body underwater.

The spearwoman struggled but was fairly helpless, sputtering fetid sewer garbage each time her head surfaced.

Jane took a split second to look up.

Winnie fended off three medium slimes, each waist high and a couple of meters wide. Two were brown, and the third was darkly glowing red, a fire-type. "Help! Can't you see I'm outnumbered! [Icicle]!"

The shot of ice forced one slime to halt while it healed itself, but the other two kept coming. Gross-smelling steam rose from around the fire slime as it oozed forward.

Jane ignored a flare of indignation at the woman's self-centred attitude. She could darn well fend for herself because Jane had someone of her own to defeat.

The spearwoman's head went under. Desperate for breath, she became ferocious.

Jane put more weight on the woman's chest. It was very unpleasant killing another person. Though this wasn't her first full-dive MMO, not even her first human kill in this game, it sickened her every time. She didn't think she'd ever get used to it. Actually, she hoped she never did. She preferred fighting zombies and monsters. Slimes, even poo slimes, were fine. When you thought about it, for a game to require people to kill human beings was pretty twisted.

The spearwoman died and fell limp.

"[Icicle]! Argh! Get off!"

Jane looked up to see that Winnie had been backed into the far wall. She couldn't fire her magic fast enough to kill any one slime, and each healed while the other two attacked. They pressed up against her legs, eating at her HP.

Roger was in an even worse position, down on both knees, water around his waist, desperately blocking overhead strikes from the rogue he fought. Although, at least he'd taken down half the rogue's health.

She made a snap decision. Hopefully, it had been fuelled by the practicality of taking down the enemy already at half health in order to free the warrior and free up more firepower and not by spite at the annoying mage who showed no appreciation for what the other two were dealing with.

"[Icicle]! Gah!"

Jane did her best football charge, sloshing toward the rogue as fast as she could in the water, lowering her shoulder, and knocking him off his feet.

Roger, panting, grunted and got to his feet. "Thanks!"

They both hit the rogue before the Shadow could regain his balance. Knife and sword turned him into a pincushion.

The Scarlet Shadow was furious. "No! This can't be my end. I deserve better than this!" The rogue gave one last gasp and died.

Roger didn't tarry. He turned and raced toward the slimes.