Sean approached the seemingly-lost Emma and explained, "That way, but Rebecca needs a moment to talk with her old party, so let's wait a little." She turned to him, then looked at the Arcanist and groaned. Rebecca was happily chatting with the other casters. He added, "What's wrong? Are you in that much of a hurry?"
"No, but… Ugh, sexy Arcanist cosplay," she remarked and sighed.
"What? But…" Sean trailed off and examined Rebecca more carefully.
Yes, the Arcanist didn't hide her hair under the cloak, the way Emma did. And yes – Rebecca strategically parted the robe at her chest… And also yes: many male casters in her vicinity were checking out her cleavage now and then – probably whenever they assumed she wasn't looking.
Sean shrugged and told Emma, "Well, I suppose I haven't noticed that aspect of–" The Healer groaned again, so he promptly switched to: "What? It's not like– Didn't you want her to come with us?"
"I do, but… objectifying much?" Emma accused.
"Oh, come on – she chose to wear the robe that way," he countered. "Not like there's a dress code or…" He paused, remembered Berserker 'clothing' and frowned. At least there weren't any players of that class here… Other than himself, nominally – because of all the glitched classes.
"And she's such a ditz," Emma added and pulled her cloak tighter around her head.
"Wait, what? How do you mean?" Sean was confused – the two casters had seemed fairly friendly not a minute ago.
"Seriously?" she commented. "The way she speaks – and a draft? Maybe between her ears…"
Suddenly it occurred to him: "Wait a minute, are you jealous? Is that why–"
"Shut up," Emma broke in. "Whatever." Then she pulled out her phone.
Sean wasn't sure what exactly was going on here, but he felt like he might have the upper hand – so he pushed, "Are you sure you're not undermining– Actually, if you're jealous of attention, then maybe you could also–"
"I'm not having this conversation," she cut him off and started typing.
Sean smiled to himself. He had won this round – or he chose to believe that.
He wanted to tease Emma some more, but Rebecca laughed out loud about something unrelated, said her goodbyes to the casters, and joined the two. She offered, "Sorry about that, but they were sad to see me go!"
"Oh, really, is that so?" Emma mocked cheerfully.
"Yeah-yeah," the Arcanist chirped, "and very nice too. They're trying out for some guild who are always looking out for new talent."
Emma gave Sean a glare, but he dismissed it – Rebecca was simply less gloomy, that was all. "Let's go. We can talk on the way," he suggested and motioned back to the side-alley entrance. They began walking, Sean between the two casters. He added, "But a guild so early? I thought it was better to–"
"Oh yeah – I was worried about that too!" the Arcanist interrupted. "But they say it's just a local guild to help find a party, and they're not taking any fees – so maybe not a scam?"
"Well, maybe…" Sean remarked, unconvinced.
Rebecca gushed, "They've been super helpful so far, and apparently that guild is trying to accept all classes, not just the current META – though they're kinda full on Mystics at the moment. And Healers too, lots of those around."
Sean glanced at Emma, but she didn't react to that slight jab – so he commented, "I think I'll wait until I can join a proper guild. More freedom to experiment." He obviously didn't add that a guild might notice his exploits.
"Right, like in the lecture!" the Arcanist exclaimed. "I think it was mostly a warning against scammers and newbie-abuse. People usually want to help each other here, though – you just have to be careful about some bad apples."
"That's true…" he remarked. "This way, into this alley." He pointed to a passageway between two residential buildings. This entrance was even more unassuming than the other end – he probably wouldn't even have noticed it, had he not known it was there. He glanced around as they turned off the wider path: there were people moving back and forth, but nobody seemed to have followed them… or paid them any mind. Good.
"Oh, this place is so neat – how did you find it?" Rebecca asked. The three of them barely fit side by side in the narrow alley.
"Well, I just… looked for a way to optimize the queue," Sean admitted.
"You mean skip it?" she pressed. He shrugged with a smirk, so she added, "Yeah, that is pretty clever! I would've done the same, but I guess… better go where the people are – strength in numbers and all that. You know what I mean?"
He joked, "Seems like everybody's going Mystic nowadays, so–"
"Right, no – except for that!" she cut in and giggled.
They walked a few steps in silence, and Sean suddenly realized: "How come you weren't so chatty yesterday, Rebecca? You barely said anything throughout the whole lecture."
"Oh, you know…" she explained, "I tried to focus and keep up with all the information: it was intense!" Sean glanced at Emma, and she gave him a pointed see-I-told-you stare. That remark sounded fairly ditzy indeed – the lecture was a bit long, but not 'that' difficult to follow. Rebecca continued carefully, "Also, I was worried about our instructor – I heard summoners were mostly PKers, that it wasn't a very useful specialization anymore. And that elemental was pretty scary, too!" Then she added with a slight frown: "But sorry about laughing when you entered – all those hobo-jokes got out of hand…"
"Not at all, it's…" Sean hesitated, but decided to be open about it: "I kinda looked like shit, with all the pizza stains and– Anyway, but where did you hear about summoners?"
"Yeah, just the internet… and some friends too!" Rebecca chirped.
"Do you have some friends playing?" he asked, hoping that maybe she had heard some insider information from endgame or at least higher-lvls.
"Not really, no," she remarked with a bit of sadness in her voice.
Sean started, "Then how– How did your friends know–"
"Oh, I meant they used to play!" she broke in. "Mostly gave up after some nerfs or even, like, one just saw the level-one rats and ran away screaming – how was she supposed to fight that , right? But with some practice and teamwork, it's not 'that' bad."
Sean glanced at Emma, but she seemed to be ignoring it. He merely remarked, "Well, it was pretty bad for melee."
"Yeah, I suppose…" Rebecca paused, then asked, "But why didn't you team up with some casters? Even Mystics should be good enough for rats, right?"
He admitted, "Well, I didn't really think of that at the time… but no respawns yet, so I guess it wasn't that bad either."
"And the fancy gear helped, yeah?" she chirped.
"Not exactly," he said. "I wore the starter first and only upgraded after having it ripped apart, basically. The rats can be rather nasty."
"Oh, right… yeah, Erea is pretty hardcore," she remarked.
"Is it?" Emma asked from his other side.
"Well, yes." Sean recounted his Reddit research: "From what I've seen, it's one of the more difficult fantasy reality-games – if not the most difficult. People are complaining about it, but–"
"Uh-huh," she interrupted and went back to typing. There was no pleasing her!
Rebecca promptly inquired, "But about your gear: how does Warrior work with a shield and– Right, is that heavy armor?"
"I switched to Tank," Sean explained. "I mean, to Fighter – after the lecture."
"But with a sword and axes?" she pressed.
"Is that wrong?" he asked.
"Nah, I wouldn't know – but Tanks usually have more like… maces and hammers, don't they?" Rebecca remarked. "From what I've seen so far, anyhow."
"Yeah, me neither, not really – also learning the rules as I go…" Sean admitted. "But it's working?"
He didn't want to have a detailed conversation that might reveal his mechanics abuses. He figured they had been walking for a while, so the row of tenement houses alongside the courtyard should be nearby – in fact, he looked ahead and noticed the black ooze marks from their previous fight in this alley.
"Anyway, we're here – so let's get ready, and…" he paused and looked at the casters. Rebecca seemed ready enough: the wand in her hand, nothing to add or 'prepare.' Emma was typing another message, so he instructed, "Fighting time, 'Emmo,' phones out."
"How did you get it working, by the way?" the Arcanist asked. "I thought they weren't supposed to–"
"Uh-huh, one sec…" Emma cut in and kept typing. It was a little obnoxious – but Sean focused on the combat.
He invited Rebecca into the party, then considered his gear. He decided to try out the sword with the shield, so he grabbed them and looked around. The neighborhood was quiet, clearly abandoned… but there were some rummaging noises coming from one of the houses. Sounded like gremlin scavengers!
"Alright, let's try this one, maybe… if the door is unlocked?" He approached it and the knob turned without resistance. Not locked at all – or just broken. He peered inside and there was a short hallway, with the noises clearly coming from a side room.
Emma didn't lower her voice: "Okay, so what are we–"
"Shush!" Sean hushed her, then whispered, "There's some gremlins, so be quiet, okay?" Emma rolled her eyes, but retrieved the staff from her back.
He ventured inside carefully and caught two scavengers by surprise – but the new sword turned out to be almost 'too strong' : the blade sliced through their makeshift armor with ease and put the creatures down with just one skill use, so he basically massacred the gremlins in the side room. One turned and tried to run – it let out a loud shriek just before it got culled, but it was no contest.
Rebecca looked into the room and asked quietly, "Is that it? Weren't the gremlins stronger–"
"He's just overpowered," Emma cut in from behind.
"No, it's– The weak ones are, well, weak but in numbers they can…" He paused and listened: there was some rumbling audible from upstairs. "There's more coming!" he warned and stood in the hallway, then glanced back: both casters were ready – even Emma was paying attention for once. He faced ahead and braced for combat. The hallway ended with a door – presumably leading into the courtyard – but a swarm of beasts turned around the corner and charged at them.
A different-looking projectile flew from behind him. He assumed it was some Arcanist spell. It put down the first gremlin in one shot… no, he noticed the creature was still moving on the floor, but badly injured. Others jumped over their fallen comrade, and two more magic attacks struck them – he recognized one of them as Emma's attack spell. The barrage slowed the charge down in the tight hallway, but didn't stop it.
He slashed the leading gremlin with Blunt Blow , and this time its armor held… almost – the blade got stuck in the shoulder and the black ooze gushed out. The creature collapsed on the floor from the impact and groaned. Sean pulled the sword out of the wound and thrust at another charging enemy. Interestingly enough, it felt like Armored Chop worked even with the horizontal move… but he missed, or rather: the beast moved aside – and the sword was much heavier than his axes, so Sean was unable to adjust his aim in time. The gremlin got close and thrust a crude dagger at him, but he bashed the attacker with his shield – then kicked the wounded one that was trying to stand up.
Two more targets stood further down in the corridor, including another big one – this one holding a spear. The weapon looked very sharp, and Sean would rather not get pierced – but the presumed gremlin leader got hit by a spell from Rebecca and staggered back. Emma's attack finished off a wounded beast on the floor. He pushed the dagger-wielding enemy aside with his shield and swung at the big one. The sword went deep into its neck and slit the side of its throat as Sean pulled back. The beast dropped the spear and gurgled, holding the wound with its hands. Another Arcanist spell finished it off.
Sean thrust at the dagger-gremlin and this time didn't miss: the sword slid across a shoddy leather chest piece and pierced the unprotected stomach. The beast dropped its dagger and held onto the blade as if to stop the pain, but Sean dragged his weapon up and twisted it. The creature vomited black ooze over his right hand and leg both, then collapsed onto the sword – Sean pulled the weapon out and looked at the scene.
Emma and Rebecca hadn't been idle: there were more spell scorch-marks and wounds on… actually, the gremlins were already dead. The last one standing picked up the spear, but received an Arcanist attack to the chest and tripped. Sean stepped over and slashed its face, then pierced the side of another creature trying to wriggle away.
"Phew, that wasn't too hard either!" Rebecca exclaimed.
"Well, umm…" Sean realized that he was out of breath. Swinging the heavy sword back and forth was exhausting – but the effects spoke for themselves: he examined the hallway and there were six dead gremlins, three or four of which were killed by him. One could argue about the big one, but two were cut open creatively and one more had heavy slash wounds. The remaining two showed heavy spell-damage – fallen either on the way to the fight or some that he missed. Though the fight turned into a bit of a tangled mess toward the end.
"I guess… the spells softened them up on the way?" he tried to provide an excuse for getting carried away again. Sort of.
"Totally overpowered," Emma complained.
"No, it was just… a better weapon and…" He struggled to come up with arguments. "So it wasn't easy , but–"
"Right, no – it was great!" Rebecca broke in. "When we went inside in the morning, the melee fighters were freaking out and running around. And gremlins hid behind them too, so annoying – it was such a mess! More players and gremlins too, but super chaotic – and you held them back and let us deal damage from the safety of–"
"He also blocked half the view…" Emma interjected.
"Yeah, but the hallway is pretty narrow – and it was fine!" the Arcanist countered while glancing back, then turned to Sean and patted him on the arm with her wand while complimenting: "And I didn't know that Tanks could be so good at killing! And you've got some moves too, Emma – usually Healers leave their mana for, you know, healing? But with teamwork, it was–"
"Yeah, whatever," Emma cut in and retreated into her phone. 'Emmo' indeed.
"Well, you did really well yourself," Sean complimented. He hadn't been counting, but it felt like the Arcanist spells were flying a lot more often than the Healer's projectile did – and likely they were stronger too. He remarked, "Who knew that a 'proper DPS' is better than two Mystics – and a Hunter too? Though, I gotta ask–"
"How do you mean?" Rebecca broke in. "Why Mystics and a Hunter?"
"Oh, we've met some… foreigners," he explained. "They weren't very good, or at least I don't think–"
"They were newbs," Emma cut him off. "But can we end this circle-jerk and get moving?" She already had her phone out.
Rebecca gave Sean an amused look, and he rolled his eyes. He went back to his previous question: "But if I may, what level are you now?"
"Oh, only seven," the Arcanist answered and… suddenly the fight made more sense. She continued, "Almost hit the sixth yesterday and barely any XP today, since the…" She shrugged lightly. "Yeah, gremlins and gargoyles are great for cash, but not the best for leveling. Why, what level are you at?"
"Uhh, we're still at… four, I think?" he admitted.
Rebecca dismissed it with a smile: "Oh, that's alright – early levels go fast!"
Emma groaned from the back, and Sean nodded quickly. He felt much better about facing a gargoyle, even with the stone monstrosity backed by gremlins – so he began, "Okay, I guess… let's see how gargoyles fare against– Oww?" He looked down: an arrow was sticking out of his left calf. He glanced back, and a gremlin archer was peeking through the doorway, though mostly hiding behind the wall. Sean turned around while complaining, "Why is it always the knee!"