You know you’re at a weird point in your life when you already have a mental checklist that you run through when you encounter monsters. Still, I’ve made it this long, so there’s no reason to stray from that now.
Step 1: Check the Breach timer. I glanced at my CommChain, the silver bracelet adorned with a deep black jewel that was on my wrist. It’s an item every Realm of Fantasy player gets after going through the opening set of quests. The air above the jewel shimmered as I touched it, displaying a sand timer alongside an analog display of the time remaining. 6 minutes was a little tighter than I would’ve liked, but for the four goblins here it should be fine.
Step 2: Check for any nearby backup. I swiped like a normal touchscreen at the display, shifting over to any nearby Called players. Well, looks like I’m flying solo for this one; the closest back up was at least 5 minutes out and not even marked as active for duty. I put up a notice requesting backup, but I wasn’t holding my breath.
Step 3: Check my gear. Health potion and Cleansing Crystal on my left, my various bomb potions on my right. It was not my proudest moment when I accidently chugged a Paralyzing Poison potion, and I had no intention of repeating that mistake.
Step 4: Prepare the thunder. I closed my eyes and began to mutter strange words even I didn’t fully understand as I pointed my staff toward the ceiling. Blended in with the purple mist that filled the bank, the grayish cloud that started to form was barely even noticeable. It slowly grew as I continued to chant, becoming larger as an occasional bolt of lightning lit up within. By the time I was done, I had a roughly beach ball sized cloud sitting near the ceiling.
And finally, Step 5: Kick some ass.
First target, that goblin that’s hacking away at that big sign advertising the bank’s credit card with his stone hatchet. Yeesh; I mean, I was offended by that high APR, too, but it’s no reason to take it out on the sign. Still, if he really wants a charge…
“Electros!” A bolt of lightning shot out my free hand, a small bolt peeling off into the growing storm cloud while the bulk of it struck the mini green brute and sending him flying through the sign he’d be ravaging. No sign the rising black ash that signaled a defeated monster, but that was no surprise. Lightning magic is the quickest but also the weakest magic in general. Still, it shot his tunic covered ass a couple feet back.
Some confused gibbering drew my attention toward the desk near the front entrance of the bank. It’s hands and mouth were full of various wires from the computer. It grabbed the knife that was sticking nearby and tried to clamber over the desk to me, only to get yanked back as it tried by the wires of the tower. I face palmed as it continued to flail and struggle, never bothering to let go of any of the wires in its hands or mouth.
“Goblins…” My hand still covered my face as I pointed my staff at the pathetic creature, a ball of reddish-orange light glowing and growing slowly. Fire magic is generally pretty slow, by which I mean it takes roughly 3 or 4 seconds to fully charge. Without a Defender or at least another Attacker to keep it busy it’d probably dodge or find cover, but by the time this particular goblin freed itself the basketball sized ball of flame was already on him. The slow speed is made up for by how hard it hits; ash was already started to come off the creature as the fireball carried him back, soon leaving only a blackened outline where he’d hit the wall.
Alright, one down, three to go. The one I shocked earlier was getting back on his feet and made a beeline for me. Time for another dose of lig-
POP! POP!
Wait, where the hell had he’d been hiding?! I cast a glance back toward what I assumed to be a security guard, if the uniform and rent-a-cop vibe was any indication. My shock that there was another civilian here was beaten by his shock of his useless shots at the charging goblin, a small ripple to form on either side of its body as they passed through it harmlessly and made a chip in the tile floor.
“Damn it, don’t shoot!” At least his useless attack bought my gaze back toward the goblin as it bought it’s hatchet around in a wild swing at my knee(it’s small size meant it only came up to about my waist). I shifted my grip to both hands on the staff and thrust the bottom of it forward, catching the shaft of the hatchet and keeping it from burying itself into my knee by inches. While it tried to free itself, I took a calm, cleansing breath… and then kicked the little bastard in his stupid face.
When it comes to games, or life in generally honestly, I know I’m rarely going to be the best at any one thing. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that there’s always going to be somebody better, but often not nearly as flexible as I could be. So while having a staff is great for focusing my magic, it’s also a big heavy stick that I could(and did) use to bash the reeling creature over its head. I’d have to remember to tell Rae that her staff fighting lessons have been paying off as the goblin started to disintegrate and fade away.
“Don’t move!” Aw, come on! I froze as the security guard trained his gun on me. Just because monsters were bulletproof didn’t mean I was. “What the hell did you do?!”
“Easy, buddy, easy…” I kept my movements slow and deliberate. “Listen, I didn’t do any of this. In fact, I’m trying to stop it. So why don’t you jus-“
“Shut up!” His gaze shot back and forth between me and the spot where the goblin had been. Geez, he looks barely any older than a teenager. “What the hell was that thing?! I shot it and it just kept going!”
“I know; that’s how it works when there’s a Breach. Monsters aren’t affected by guns or anything that doesn’t have some kind of magical blessing on it. Even the melee weapon users have runes somewhere on them that makes them effective.” My cat ears twitched as I tried to locate the other two goblins by sound while keeping my gaze locked on the security guard.
“Listen, what’s your name? I’m Xa…” Yipe; that was close. I wanted to appear friendly, but no at the expense of giving out my real name. Besides, technically I wasn’t Xavier at the moment. “Aerilla, I mean. That’s my name.”
“Aerilla?... What the hell are you, Aerilla?” Jim’s(I got it off his nametag, since he wasn’t sharing) tone was wavering back and forth between scared and angry almost as much as his aim was wavering on me. Getting shot accidently wouldn’t be any better than getting shot intentionally. “You have cat ears, and a tail, and lightning came out your hand…”
“I’m a cat girl, and a mage.” Should I explain to him that all of who have been Called are women, and animal morphs of some sort? No, probably not; poor guy looks freaked out enough as it is, and I really didn’t have time for this. Once the Breach closed, any monsters remaining would stay, and I’d lose my powers. “Listen, Jim, just put the gun down and let me han-“
“How do you know my name?!” Great; I think I’d have had better luck bargaining with the wire eating goblin than Jim. I started to mutter another spell as softly as I could, which did nothing to ease Jim’s nervousness. “What are you saying? Stop that!”
My ears twitched as something crashed behind the teller’s windows; looks like I’d found the other two goblins, and they were heading towards us. That gave me an advance warning when one of them hopped onto the counter and let out a tiny battle cry. Jim instinctively turned toward the new monster, giving me the opening I needed to take him out of the picture.
“Doramis!” No fancy flashes of light accompanied this spell as I quickly pointed my staff at Jim. He turned the gun toward me again, only to nearly drop it as his whole body started to go limp. A large yawn escaped him before he fell to the ground as the sleep spell took hold. I threw another quick lightning bolt at the charging goblin before grabbing the unconscious Jim under his shoulders and hauling him toward another office.
I gently eased the gun that Jim was now cradling like a teddy bear(and us Amercian’s wonder why other countries think we love guns so much) and stuck it in my belt so at least I wouldn’t have to be dodging bullets if Jim woke up. Surprised the goblins weren’t on top of me already, I closed the office door and soon found out why as I stepped out into the main bank area. The purple mist of the Breach had lightened once the goblins had come out, but now it seemed to be darkening near the ceiling again. The two goblins were staring and chattering with each other as they watched the growing cloud in confusion.
“Hmm?” The jewel on my CommChain flashed for my attention. The Breach timer popped up, except instead of time having run down since the start of the Breach, the timer had reset back to six minutes. “That’s weird; time never gets added, unless…”
A startled cry from the goblin bought my attention back toward them just in time to see it get crushed under the clawed feet of a six foot long ice drake that dropped out of the mist. His companion tried to make a run for it, only making it two steps before the blue scaled creatures jaws grabbed and crushed the squirming creature. Both of them turned to ashen dust within seconds.
“…Unless another monster gets added…”
And that’s when it charged toward me.
