Chapter Twenty-Nine
Alex had never been one to customize her avatar's appearance in games. She didn't care about changing the color, or adding more spikes to her pauldrons. The only thing that concerned her was the math behind the pixels. How much armor did it give? What abilities? Were the set bonuses worth collecting?
But in those games, she'd been playing someone else, a fictional persona meant to represent her, but they'd never been her.
Gamemakers Online was different. Instead of an avatar, it was Alexandria Duke, the real flesh-and-blood person, the one with a scar on her knee from falling out of a tree when she was eight years old and brown eyes with gold edges. Though she knew she was in some sort of matrix-like creation, the fully immersive senses made it feel as real as the world outside. Which meant that because it was her silky black hair, her button nose, her wide face and hips, her freckles in the game, it changed how she viewed her character.
The Midnight Razorelks had given her a pair of black leather pants that provided a slight magical resistance, but it wasn't the ability that excited her, but the way they clung to her shapely hips and shimmered in the afternoon sunlight as if galaxies swirled beneath the surface.
With the whip over her shoulder, she felt like a feral dominatrix, a wildling of this strange land, or the ringmaster at a BDSM circus.
"I don't know if my mom would even recognize me," she remarked, sensing that the game had changed her in ways no other game had.
In the weeks since the razorelks, she'd made short work of the remaining herds. Two of them had herd leaders like the razorelks, but neither of them caused as much trouble.
One of the last few were a group of Arctic Devillions that she suspected might create a challenge. Alex had sent Pinky after them, but her minion hadn't been gone long when she sensed a rapid return. A brown shape zipped through the trees, darting around them in short bursts.
"What is it, Pinky? Did Timmy fall down a well?" she joked when her minion reached her.
After leveling again, her minion looked like a sleek bat with wide round eyes. The disgusting proboscis remained, but it was tucked beneath her belly.
Pinky hovered in the air, darting nervously like a hummingbird on crack.
Her minion couldn't talk, but she could send emotions and vague images. What she received was a blurry blot and the sense of vibration.
"I don't know what that means," said Alex. "Can you give me something else?"
But she didn't have to wait for Pinky, as she caught the sound of angry buzzing at the edges of her hearing.
"A swarm?" asked Alex, receiving an affirmative from Pinky.
Alex squinted in the direction of the noise. Through the trees, a couple hundred feet out, she saw a hazy blob moving in her direction. Nearer the spire, larger groups milled about, but she hadn't been able to get close enough for fear of causing a chain reaction.
Homing Terrorbees, Warped Animal, Level 9
"Hmmm...level nine, that's not so bad," she said.
Alex had made level 13 a few days ago. It would be the first time she'd be fighting something of a lower level. But like the Ghostly Cobrawasp, their flight ability would be problematic. The reason the pond worked as a makeshift AoE conduit for her Cloud Taunt spell was that they were fighting on a two-dimensional plane. Creatures who could fly created a new set of challenges, because she wouldn't be able to use the pond.
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Despite the added difficulty, Alex wasn't worried. She'd fought mobs that were much higher level, and her spells would be more effective against the terrorbees due to her superior level.
But when the swarm flew close enough that she could see the individual terrorbees, doubts crept in. She'd been fighting against herds of ten to twenty animals that moved on flat ground. The swarm of Homing Terrorbees looked to contain upwards of fifty individuals, each one the size of a basketball.
As they neared, Alex analyzed them again, hoping to learn more about them.
Homing Terrorbees, Warped Animal, Level 9
Ability: Unrelenting Attack
The terror part is redundant
A shiver passed through Alex as she thought about the implications of Unrelenting Attack. When she was a kid, she'd accidently stepped on a hive of ground bees and they'd chased her for a whole mile, stinging her over a dozen times, until she threw herself inside the trailer.
Concerned that the terrorbees could permanently kill her minions, Alex sent them back to camp. If she died, she would resurrect at her spawn point, but they couldn't, and she didn't want to lose her valuable friends.
The three minions rose high above the trees, quickly disappearing from her thoughts. This was a battle she would have to win alone.
When the terrorbees hit the edge of her range, Alex hit one with Cloud Taunt.
You have hit a Homing Terrorbee with Cloud Taunt for 38 damage!
You have hit a Homing Terrorbee with Cloud Taunt for 48 damage!
You have hit a Homing Terrorbee with Cloud Taunt for 42 damage!
The crackling electricity jumped to two other bees, affecting them with her favorite damage-over-time spell, but that left another fifty or so terrorbees to deal with. She calculated she could cast Cloud Taunt another six times before running out of mana, which meant at best she could affect another twenty terrorbees, if each spell hit two more, and she doubted that would kill even one.
With the swarm closing the distance, Alex hit them with her second-tier Wind Gust. The heavy gusts pushed the swarm back into the trees and dealt them a small amount of damage. The higher-tier version of the spell came with a damage component, but she hadn't taken the time to max it out yet, which meant it was only a temporary reprieve.
Alex blasted a cluster of terrorbees with a Cloud Taunt, catching six in the spread after it hit. Maybe she could group them with Wind Gust and take down the swarm with Cloud Taunt, but she'd already used nearly half her pool of faez. There was no way she could continue the battle without a way to slow their advance.
Before the swarm could regroup, she hit it with another Wind Gust, then took off running northward so she didn't lead them back to her spawn point. If she could regen enough faez between Wind Gusts, she might be able to kite them through the forest until the damage from the spell took them down. It would be a race against her fatigue levels, but she had no choice but to try. If it didn't work, she could devise a new tactic and try again after resurrecting.
Alex stopped on a rise near a copse of flowering trees that looked like they'd had paint spilled over them. A check of her faez pool showed she'd gained most of what she'd spent on the Wind Gust spell. The strategy was messy and slow, but it could work, she decided.
As the heavy buzzing approached, Alex thought it sounded different than before. She turned her head to the left and right, calibrating what she was hearing. It sounded like a faint echo reverberated in her ears.
When the swarm flew up the rise, Alex calculated that she could spare a Cloud Taunt before hitting them with Wind Gust. As she readied the spell, she realized why she'd heard an echo.
Alex spun around right as six Homing Terrorbees shot down from above. She'd gotten so used to her minions providing a "creature radar" for her, that when she sent them away, she'd forgotten that they weren't watching her back.
You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 17 damage!
A Homing Terrorbee misses you!
A Homing Terrorbee misses you!
Critical hit! You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 29 damage!
A Homing Terrorbee misses you!
You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 15 damage!
Each hit burned as if she'd been jabbed with a sharp stick. A third of her hit points drained away with the surprise attack. Alex returned fire with a Wind Gust, blowing the six terrorbees into the air. They tumbled over themselves until they hit the upper canopy of leaves.
The distraction allowed the bulk of the swarm to close the distance as leaves fell from above. When she cast Wind Gust, it only caught half the swarm since they'd spread out around her.
A Homing Terrorbee misses you!
You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 22 damage!
A Homing Terrorbee misses you!
Alex flailed around with random Wind Gusts, hoping to keep the terrorbees off her, but it was a losing battle. The constant stings kept her off balance until enough damage had been done.
You have been stung by a Homing Terrorbee for 17 damage!
You have died!
