“That’s it,” Mad Wim announces in a tone a little different from his usual jaded indifference as he hands me the fiftieth vial of his Eternal Life potion. “You’re saturated.”

“What are you saying?”

“It won’t do you any good to drink any more after this final potion. Your body has absorbed all it can. You’re at your limit.”

Curious, I drink the potion down and pull up my status window.

[Shroomlet Aura level 5: A cloud of mushroom spores follows you, damaging your enemies.

15 ft radius

-0.3% HP/second

5% Life Leech

Stops enemy regeneration]

So that’s it, then. The Life Leech ability no longer stacks. As Mad Wim says, I’ve reached my limit.

At last.

I collapse into the rickety chair and heave a ragged sigh. I could cry with relief.

Four days, four nights, I did nothing but take hits and run for my life. When I ran out of potions I’d return to the village, sell the loot I’d gathered, craft items, prepare food. With the coin I earned I bought more potions, then I headed out again.

I must be the only fool on the planet out here, farming starter area mobs until they no longer give experience.

[Character name: Revelator

Level: 8

Race: Human

Class: Defender

Subclass: None

HP: 590

Constitution: 28

Strength: 6

Agility: 15

Intelligence: 2

Luck: -

Skills: Armor Crafting (4), Block (5), Cooking (4), Jewel Crafting (4), Shield Proficiency (5), Shield Repair (5), Shroomlet Aura (5)]

I realized I stopped getting experience from jackalopes at level seven (they never did drop the Swiftness skill book). Then when I reached level eight, the toads quit giving experience too. Now with the Shroomlet Aura buffed to the max, there are no more mobs left in this starter area for me to fight. Except for her.

Baba Yaya.

I was scared of her in the beginning, terrified of the idea of facing a child-snatching witch in a creepy swamp. But at this point I’m so sick of the monotony that’s become my day to day life, I’d face Voldemort himself if it meant I never had to see another damn toad again.

From where he stands looking out his small, grimy window with his hands on his hips, Mad Wim speaks, his words thoughtful and drawn out. “I’ll tell you something, Princess. I’ve seen a lot of travelers come and go, but you’re the first to stick with me in this endeavor to the end. I don’t know if the regeneration my potions give will be worth it to you in the end or not—”

“It will be,” I answer, more for myself than for him. For my playstyle, Mad Wim’s bonus was perfect. When I pull a hundred monsters at once, the damage the aura does adds up, and now I heal by five percent of that damage. It will make an even bigger difference when I get the Shroomlet Aura to a higher level.

“—but if there’s one thing I respect, it’s persistence. If you ask me, that patience of yours is the true skill worth cultivating.”

Wait, did Mad Wim just compliment me?

“I’m going to miss seeing you around the place. Tess will miss you, too,” he says, and the shroomlet dances a bit sadly in her cage.

“What are you talking about?” I laugh. “As soon as I leave this hut, you’ll forget all about me.”

Mad Wim turns so I see his profile, and he smiles a little sadly. “I only forget those not worth remembering.”

[You have gained Mad Wim’s favor.]

I blink uncomprehendingly at the status window, looking between the update and the crazy NPC.

“Wait, does this mean—”

“I might not be able to swing a sword, but if you need an alchemist, Princess, you come to me. I won’t turn you away.”

With that he turns back to the window. I watch him a minute, but he has nothing more to say. I rise tentatively, and cross the room to where Tess sits inside her cage. Reaching through the bars, I stroke her cool cheek with a finger, and she leans into my touch, cooing fondly.  

Perplexed, with mixed emotions, I look back once more on Mad Wim, who still stands with his back to me.

It’s funny, I think. The guy always bullied me. But I guess I did grow a little fond of this place in the time we worked together. I wonder if he really will remember me. I’m sure I’ll remember him, I think as I leave his dark, dingy hut for the last time, and step out into the sunlight.

As I start down the street, something strikes the back of my head.

[-1 HP]

“Ow!”

I look back just in time to see Mad Wim’s door slam shut. Then I glance at the ground and pick up a burlap sack. Inside is a variety of potions in varying suspicious colors, all bearing the same name.

[+100 Mad Wim’s Homemade Health Potions]

“Crazy jerk,” I grumble, and I walk away, rubbing the back of my head.

I spend the next two hours cooking, crafting and selling my loot. All around me I see newly spawned players coming and going. A few stop to stare at me, to remark on my appearance or gawk at my level, but I ignore them, and keep to myself. My mind is fixed on the battle ahead.

The Shroomlet Aura skill is level five now. That means I can kill any mob, be they shroomlet or boss level monster, in five and a half minutes. Unlike other foes I’ve faced up till this point, Baba Yaya is sure to have spells. I won’t be able to stop those using my Block skill, because that only works on physical attacks. I’m just hoping I’ll be able to absorb some of the damage with my shield, or at least outmaneuver her with my high Agility stat. I’ve noticed an increase in my movement and reaction speed as I continue to put points into it with each level up. I can only hope it will be enough.  

This encounter will make or break Revelator. Here I’ll find out if all of my effort grinding for a week in Tenderfoot Slough when other players breeze through it in a single day has been in vain. More importantly, I’ll learn if an aura build is viable in Tetra Chronicles, and whether or not it will be enough to carry me through to the end of the game, or force me to start over again from scratch with a brand new character.

It’s now or never, I think, fixing my shield firmly in my grip as I stalk towards the heart of the slough, where the trees grow gnarled and thick, covered in a stringy, sickly green moss. Stepping onto the deeply shaded path, I get a system notification.

[Loading single player instance

Exit condition: Kill Baba Yaya]

Gulp.

I look back, and the road I entered by is overgrown with thick bramble, so I cannot escape. Ahead, I see a crooked old cottage with flickering green windows.

[Heart rate accelerating. 135 BPM. Automatic system shutdown if heart rate reaches 150 BPM.]

“Stop that,” I chide my own heartbeat. “This is a starter area boss—you’re already level eight. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

Something creaks then, a window shutter, I think, though it doesn’t stop me from yelping audibly.

Shield up, I scan the dark forest for her approaching figure, to no avail.

God, I hate this. This is worse than that time my uncle thought it would be funny to drag me through a haunted house. I still remember that night, just before Halloween, ten-years-old. I remember the younger kids laughing when I peed my pants at the first jump scare. My uncle still brings it up every family get-together…

It’s cold. Outside beneath the sun was pleasant and warm, but a chilly, foul smelling wind in this closed instance makes my flesh ripple with goose bumps.

Where is she?

After standing here, knees knocking for what feels like a full minute, I decide to approach the house. I go slow, shield up, eyes darting from side to side, expecting a surprise attack at any moment. Nothing.

I creep up to the window and peer inside. A bent old woman shuffles around a bubbling cauldron, muttering to herself. Her thinning hair is long and clumped with grease, and it sways with the ragged robes that cloak her skeletal frame.

From some inner pocket she pulls it out then, a baby’s rattle. I think of the woman from the village, her certainty that the witch would come for one of her children soon as Baba Yaya throws the child’s toy with a gleeful cackle into her pot. As it splashes down the pot sparks and changes to a deep red, casting the scene in a crimson glow.  

Then, as though sensing eyes on her, the witch freezes, her back to me. I hold my breath as she turns slowly. She finds me with her gaze, and I feel my blood run cold.

Her lip curls, lifts to reveal just a handful of rotted hag’s teeth. Then, with a sound that can only be described as a fart, she disappears in a cloud of green smoke.

Oh god. She teleported. Where’d she go?! Tell me she’s not—

I spin instinctively and of course she’s right there with the jump scare, sneering menacingly up at me.

“Boo.”

“Austen? Austen, please respond if you can hear me.”

I wake with a start inside the capsule, my sweat-soaked form bathed in a violet light. My heart is hammering in my throat.

“Tina?” I gasp.

“I lost contact with your Alpha waves. The session was terminated. You appear to have lost consciousness.”

“I fainted?”

“That is the most likely scenario. Would you like me to contact emergency services?”

“No.”

“Understood. Shall I launch the relaxation protocol?”

“Yes, but, first. Tina. Tell me. Did I…puh…pee…”

“I’m sorry, I do not understand the question. Are you asking me if you pee—”

“Never mind! I don’t want to know! Just—launch the relaxation protocol!”

“Understood. Initializing contact. Alpha waves registered. Contact stabilized. Launching relaxation protocol.”

I can’t believe it. I actually fainted. After coming so far, after battling thousands of mobs, when faced with the witch…

I sink forward on the bench, elbows on my knees, head in my hands.

It isn’t the first time. I’ve fainted several times before when I was very young. The last time I recall happened when I was in first grade after I’d caught a lizard by the tail. Or at least I thought I’d caught it, only to watch it scurry away into the bushes, abandoning its twitching, wriggling tail in my hands.

That time I fell and cracked my head on the pavement. It caused quite a fuss; my mom had to be called away from work to take me to the hospital. When I was pronounced none the worse for wear I recall she was particularly relieved, but only because that meant she could take me back to school, and return to the company before her big meeting.

“Tina. What do I do? I think I might have childhood trauma.”

“I am an advanced AI programmed to help humans work through their difficult emotions. Would you like me to—”

“No… No.” I sigh. I don’t need to work through it.

I’m a loser. I’ve always known that. It’s why I was always so happy to hide behind premium gear and pretend I was someone, buying my way to the top of every game I played. Because I knew outside of those worlds I was nobody. A burden to my family, an embarrassment.

I don’t like myself. I’ve never liked myself. Never saw any value in me. But lately, even though I was grinding through a most tedious part of the game, I’d been having so much fun inside of Tetra Chronicles, I guess I’d forgotten that. Watching my character level up, watching my skills grow, it gave me a sense of self-worth, a sense of value that I’d never felt before.

“Was it all for nothing, Tina?”

“I don’t understand your question.”

Was it all for nothing?

A flash, a memory, innocuous, insignificant. A knock in the back of the head. A sack of health potions. The respect gained of a mad alchemist. His words of admiration as he praised my determination to level the Life Leech bonus to the max.

And I smile. Feel a little tickle of something I’ve never felt before, deep in my breast.

Pride.

Sure, the witch may have gotten the better of me in a moment of panic. But I’m not beat, yet. I’m far from beat.

And I’ll beat her a hundred times—just to prove it!