27: Motivation
We got to the dungeon hub an hour before lunch and found it packed with people. Like all the other buildings in the city, it was constructed of carefully interlocked stone blocks, with a dirt and grass roof high above and a large courtyard in the middle. The courtyard was a huge multi-tiered arena-looking place, with stairs leading up the interior so people could reach the portals at the upper levels.
Noah followed behind me apprehensively, but at our current size, nobody really noticed two fairies fly into the area. That didn’t stop him from hiding at my back as we neared the portal we needed.
“That’s the other group I went in with,” he squeaked, pulling me up short with a hand around my arm.
It shouldn’t have surprised me, but the group he pointed out had the angry woman from the market earlier. I guess now I knew why he’d been crying, this bitch had been yelling at him. Next to her was someone else I recognised. It was the asshole gatekeeping blacksmith dude, except now he was decked out in full plate armour.
"Just ignore them," I said, patting Noah's hand where it still gripped my forearm. "If they mess with us, let me do the talking."
“As if I was going to talk to them at all,” he muttered, but he followed me towards the portal regardless of his reticence.
Predictably, it was the tank dude who saw us first. Damn guy must have had a harassment victim radar or something.
“Oh look, it’s the fairy, and you have a friend now,” he laughed, waving like I didn’t hate his guts.
The tall, angry looking woman turned and spotted us hovering in the air, and her eyes zeroed in on Noah. “I wouldn’t hang with him, girl. He queued as a tank, but look at him.”
“Looks like you found someone whose brain is as small as yours,” I remarked, addressing the tank stone-faced while ignoring the woman. I put on an even more girly act now, wrapping my arm around Noah like he was my boyfriend. Sweetly, I continued, “Too bad you all didn’t know what he was, huh?”
“What is he?” the woman asked, frowning now.
I laughed, abruptly switching to a harsh, condescending tone. “Are you all really that new to the game? He’s a mage tank. Come on, I know the meathead obviously blocks things with his head, but really?”
“A what?” the big dude asked, sharing a look with the woman who’d bullied Noah.
Sighing, I toned down the nastiness in my voice. “The race and classes we have, you can only get as a drop. It means that anyone you see with weapons like these and a race like this is obviously not a new player. Y'all though? You have default races and classes, and you’re doing level twenty content, which gives me an idea of your levels. So do me a favour and take your stupid fucking preconcieved ideas of what can and can’t be done in this game, and throw it away. Thank you.”
With that, I dragged Noah over to the portal and pressed my thumb to the book next to it, opening a private instance for us. Then, before they could respond, I pulled us both through the shimmering blue of the portal’s surface.
When we rematerialised, it was just inside the entrance to a cave. Behind us, the makeshift wooden door blocked all view of the outside world, and ahead of us, the passage led down into the earth. Every ten metres or so, a rickety wooden support held up the ceiling, keeping the whole thing from collapsing. Basically, it was a generic video game bandit lair.
I was shaking from the conversation outside the dungeon, and cringing a little at the monologue I gave. As much as I had the confidence to clap back at folks like that, I really hated the aftermath. Now there were a bunch of people out there who I'd just yelled at, and the pressure was on to prove myself or suffer unbearable humiliation. Ugh.
“How do we take the first room?” Noah asked, his voice hushed so we didn’t alert any enemies.
“We stay small, dodge everything you can, take the hits you can’t on your shields, and keep them looking at you,” I told him seriously. “I’ll handle the killing.”
He was less than enthusiastic about my plan. “That’s it? There’s only two of us! How are we meant to—“
He didn’t get to finish, because I fluttered down the hallway with my tiny fairy wings and launched myself bodily into the first room. Several goblins were lounging around what used to be the mineshaft hub. Four wooden tables were spread out over the old mine floor, each one covered in more dust and filth than the last.
The goblins didn’t even have time to react to my arrival before I dashed into the nearest one and rammed my glowing, growling sword into its chest. Gleefully, I twirled and avoided its clumsy, dying blow, and lunged for the next one. Holy shit this tiny fairy class was fun, and killing things was a great stress reliever.
My next foe was marginally more prepared, but only just. At one foot tall, I might not have had much in the way of health, but oh boy was I fast. I took his life and his head with a single flicker of my blade. The searing energy that flowed up my blade instantly cauterised the wound, causing it to fall below the threshold of the gore filter.
Across the room, I saw a goblin with a crossbow desperately trying to wind back the string of his weapon. The badly maintained mechanism slipped in his panicked grasp, but it wouldn’t have mattered. I threw my anvil at him and charged with my Ribbon Roll, crossing the intervening distance in the blink of an eye.
Pinprick Strike gave me the penetration needed to shatter his skull and drive him into the wooden pillar that his crossbow had been leaning against. To my surprise, I saw that he’d actually managed to get the crossbow drawn and nocked before he died.
I flew underneath the weapon where it lay limp in his hand and pushed it up into the air again, then kicked out at his stiffening finger. The crossbow bucked, and the bolt leapt out to take an approaching goblin in the thigh. It screamed, and that was the moment that Noah joined me.
A spray of lavender energy tore apart the goblin’s right arm and spun it around. He landed on the monster’s balding head with his palm down, and his tiny arm jerked with his spell’s recoil—A spike of magic tore into the monster’s skull, ending it.
His tiny battlecry and the results of his entrance into the fight caused the eyes of every remaining goblin to focus in on him. Aha, that was a taunt! Now I could really go to work.
Pulling my sword back, I shifted my grip on it and sighted the next crossbow goblin, then whipped it out in a wide, sweeping Spring Slash. Soft pink light sliced into the ranged enemy, ruining his arm and putting him out of the fight. It didn’t kill him outright, though—Not enough damage. I needed to practise that move more, and maybe throw some ability points at it.
A goblin wielding a large axe reached Noah while I was thinking, and I moved to rush it before it could hurt him. I shouldn’t have worried, because a shield of shimmering lavender energy appeared in the air to take the blow. He wasn’t even paying attention to the enemy before it flicked into place, but his little angry shout and the subsequent blast of magical power put an end to the offending monster. I knew the little dude had it in him. I fucking knew it. Just needed the proper motivation.
The remaining goblins didn’t stand a chance, not with him taking all the aggro so I could freely murder them all. At the end of the short, brutal melee, he and I hovered in the center of the room breathing heavily.
“Holy shit!” he squeaked, eyes shining with the adrenaline of battle. “That was so fucking cool! You’re wild, oh my god! Like, the way you just rushed in and started hacking them apart was amazing! What a rush!”
Smiling as he got all excited, I bumped his hip with mine and replied, “You were pretty badass there too. Your shields are awesome! How does your class work, exactly? Do you really not need a healer?”
“Oh, excess healing on me instead goes to my shields,” he said, fluttering down onto a table to rest. “Their hit points are technically infinite, although there’s diminishing returns once you get to the soft cap of my current level and ability prowess.”
I followed him down to the table and blurted the first thought that came to mind. “Oh damn. Ethan would fucking love you.”
Noah stared at me. “Who is Ethan?”
“Oh, um…” I stalled, trying to figure out how to word my answer. “He’s a healer I know. He loves getting big heals off on people.”
“Is he hot?” the small dude asked, giving me a sly grin.
Blinking with surprised consternation, I began to shake my head, then turned it into a funny little shrug. “I guess? I wouldn’t know. He’s definitely into dudes, though. Currently dating a piece of shit in human skin.”
“Ew, that’s not a great image,” Noah chuckled, making a face.
“Hey, it is what it is,” I grinned. My face fell a little as I remembered just how much of a shitbag Marlon really was. “If we stay friends, I’ll tell you the story of my old guild sometime.”
“Sounds juicy. I love tea,” he remarked, grinning, then popped back up into the air with a flourish. “Well, my confidence in this dungeon run is pretty high right now, so should we continue?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “After you, mister tank!”