Boiling Isles RPG

Amity’s POV

What was taking this girl so long? Amity thought as she drummed her fingers against her desk. She’d been dutifully waiting by the fountain as Willow had instructed but so far no one had approached her except some goblin that was selling something.

Amity glanced at the alarm clock on her desk, it was just past midnight, maybe she should just go to sleep and try again in the morning, that is if her parents would let her do anything besides get a head start on her classwork. Amity groaned, school hadn’t even started yet and it already felt like she was downing. She checked the clock again and shook her head. Enough was enough, she was about to log out when a figure in a hood came up and approached her.

Words appeared in a text bubble above the figure’s head. Lazura34: Hi! Are you Witchling?

Amity blinked, Lazura34, that was the person Willow told her to meet right? The girl’s avatar looked interesting enough, a dark blue cloak with a hood, short dark hair, brown eyes, and ears that were almost as pointy as Amity’s character’s. She had a bow and quiver over her shoulder and a satchel at her side, it didn’t look like she had a lot of armor on especially compared to others she’d seen walking around but the brown breastplate she wore had an intricate pattern on it that seemed to indicate it was for a more experienced player. Amity typed back, Witchling: Yeah, that’s me I guess, it’s nice of you to show up. Amity bit her cheek the second she pressed enter, that was probably a rude thing to say but she’d been waiting for a while.

The girl responded almost immediately, Lazura34: Yeah, sorry about that, I was in the middle of a mission when Salix called me over discord. Oh! What’s your username on discord so we can actually talk instead of typing back and forth?

Amity hesitated, not really sure if it was a good idea to give that information to someone she just met but remembered that she hadn’t put any real information into the account anyway. She decided that the risk was minimal and gave the girl her information then a second later got a ping from the other window and accepted the friend request. “Is this working?” She asked into her microphone as a test.

“Woah, what’s up with your mike? It sounds kind of weird.” This was really the first thing she had to say to her, no hello or anything?

“Yeah, it’s a little old.” Amity responded, her tone clipped.

“Well, at least it works.” Lazura said, seemingly oblivious to Amity’s annoyance. ‘It’s nice to meet you, I’m Lazura but you already knew that. So Salix says that this is your first time playing.”

Salix? Amity thought before remembering that that was Willow’s username. She’d mentioned at some point that she and Augustus didn’t like using her real names ingame and that it was more common to go by the username. “Yeah, she said you could help me get started. I, uh, don’t really know what I’m doing yet.”

“That’s no problem!” Lazura said cheerfully over her mike. “It looks like Salix already sent you a party invite so if you accept it I can help you get some basic armor and a wand to start you out.”

Amity glanced over the screen until she spotted a scroll labeled ‘Notifications’ with a 1 printed on it. She accepted the invitation and the slot on the taskbar labeled ‘Party’ lit up. “Uh, I think i got it.” Amity said clicking on the slot and scrolling through, it showed not only her three new party members but their basic stats as well. She recognised Salix400 as Willow, the fairy druid had glasses and dark hair just like her. Then there was Ca3sarsGh0st who was definitely Augustus; it said he was a goblin paladin, whatever that was. Finally, there was Lazura, a half elf with, what was that, ranger-artificer, as her class. “What’s an artificer?” Amity asked. “I don’t think I saw that when I was making my character.”

“Oh, that’s my multiclass, artificers are basically the people who create magical weapons.” Lazura started explaining. “After you play for long enough and start to establish your interests more, sometimes the game will give you prompts for certain side quests that you can do to add a nontraditional class on top of what you already are.”

“And how long have you been playing?”

“I’ve been playing for a few hours a day for a couple years now.” Lazura said as if it was the most normal thing in the world for someone to spend hours in a virtual world with no real world benefit to anything. “So, onto shopping!”

Lazura lead Amity around the main area to a few different shops and a few different food stands. Apparently she was low on health from a failed mission or something but Amity didn’t really understand a lot of what she was saying. To her credit though, Lazura definitely knew what she was talking about, going on about weight to speed ratios and damage percentiles at a rate that made Amity’s head spin despite all of the advanced math courses she’d taken. Honestly, it was kind of nice to listen to her talk, she had a nice voice and was clearly passionate about everything, plus she didn’t talk down to her when she asked a question which is something that her family was prone to doing.

“Hey, Lazura,” Amity spoke up after a lecture about the magical advantages of different types of wood in the wand shop. “I saw some wizard looking guys with staphs, where can I get one of those.”

“Oh don’t worry we’ll get you a staph eventually.” Lazura stepped back and faced Amity’s avatar. “Staphs actually can’t be bought in shops, they’re earned after certain missions that you probably won’t be able to complete for a little while. Besides, you should probably get a feel for a few different kinds of wood first so that you can figure out what kind of magic you prefer, that way we can go on a mission for the kind of staph that would work best for you.”

Amity nodded before remembering that Lazura couldn’t see her. “Okay, so what’s a good wand to start with?” She listened as Lazura showed her the pine wand that was apparently the best one for basic magic of all kinds and after the ranger helped her pick out a basic spell book they were off to her first dungeon.

Amity and Lazura walked side by side through the grey stone hallways. The maze was lit by some green lamps hanging every few feet and there was spooky background music that Lazura had been keen to point out. Amity was flipping through her spell book per Lazura’s instructions as the girl gave a crash course on magic. “So, you have to make sure that you’ve got your spell book equipped or else it doesn’t work, and keep an eye on your mana because more powerful spells take up more of it and the dagger you’ve got won’t help you out all that much if it comes down to it.”

“Okay, I think I’ve got it.” Amity put the spell book away and noticed some scratches on the wall. “Lazura, are those claw marks?” She suddenly felt her heart rate increase, Lazura had told her this was a monster dungeon but she didn’t think they would come up so soon. She was unprepared, her palms started to sweat making the mouse slippery. She wasn’t ready for this.

“Yeah!” Lazura responded, cheerful as ever. “You see how they’re white against the stone walls? That’s how the game developers let us know that we’re going the right way. The first cave spider spawn is actually right around the next corner. I was gonna point that out in a second but you beat me to it, you’ve got a good eye Witchling!”

“Uh, thanks.” Amity’s worry faded slightly as she felt her face heat up. She doubted she could count on more than one hand the number of times she remembered being complimented. It felt… nice.

Lazura must have noticed a change in her voice because she stopped walking and faced Amity. “Hey, you don’t need to worry about anything, I know this dungeon like the back of my hand. The main goal here is for you to learn how to cast spells and earn some XP, I’ll keep all of the monsters occupied, all you’ll need to worry about is hitting them.” Amity could almost picture the smile the girl must have had on her face. “So, you ready?”

Amity smiled, feeling better about herself than she’d felt in a while. “Yeah, let’s do it.”

Amity completely lost track of time, firing off the spells that Lazura suggested albeit slowly, while the ranger kept the spiders’ attention on her. “What should I do next?” She called out, her mana was getting low but she should have enough for a few more spells.

“Try ice knife, it’s low level but does damage to anything next to it even on a miss.” Lazura stabbed one of the three spiders that were chasing her, doing just enough damage to keep it occupied on her without taking away Amity’s kill, then expertly dodged its attack before sprinting several spaces away. She was giving Amity enough time to ready the spell, as unpracticed and slow as she was. She’d messed up a few times and had missed a few more, then the second her mouse finished tracing the symbol on her screen, her avatar drew a circle of blue energy in the air and was now just waiting for Amity to press the button. Lazura jumped, “Now!” she shouted and Amity fired.

The ice blue spell erupted from the spell circle and Amity watched as it seemed to shatter against the center spider, sending shards out to the two smaller spiders behind it. All three immediately keeled over, having taken plenty of damage from her at this point along with this being a ‘newbie dungeon’ as Lazura had called it. “Yes!” Amity shouted before remembering that there were other people in the house.

“Witchling, that was awesome!” Lazura seemed to have no such quarrel about the volume of her voice.

“Thanks,” Amity grinned as she collected the spider silk and the single fang that had appeared as the spider carcasses faded. “So which way next?”

“Okay, so two turns from here, there’s a cave with a few bats, they’re small but fast and…” Lazura’s voice faded out like she’d gotten distracted.

“Lazura?” Amity called over her mike, “you still there?”

“Actually Witchling, I’m really sorry but I have to go now. You have my discord so you can message me through that if you have any questions.”

Amity blinked at the suddenness of this, she wasn’t ready to stop yet but she also didn’t want to keep going without Lazura there. “Uh, okay,” she was unsure of what else to say. “I guess I’ll see you around then.”

“See you soon!” Lazura said and with that, her avatar vanished from the game.

The green haired girl sighed, disappointed that the night was over already. “Wait,” she said, confusion in her voice. “How do I get out of here?”

“Oh, since you’re out of combat you can just hit the map and it’ll teleport you to right outside the dungeon.” Amity almost screamed as Lazura’s voice came over her headphones until she remembered that they were talking over discord and not the game. “Or if you want to leave the game completely you can just hit the exit button in settings, it’s the gear in the upper right.”

“Oh, okay, thank you.” Amity said, her voice faint from the slight shock.

“No problem! Goodnight!” There was an audible blip as Lazura left the voice chat and Amity exited the game, slowly closing the lid of her laptop and letting the dim glow from her alarm clock consume her as the only source of light. “Oh crap,” Amity muttered looking at the clock. When did it get to be 3:00am?

Luz’s POV

Witchling seemed really nice, Luz thought as she closed her laptop carefully. She hoped they’d be able to play again before school started and everything inevitably went to hell. She stood up from her chair and stretched before making her way into the kitchen as the rumble of the engine in the driveway died out. A small smile on her face, Luze went about her normal routine of grabbing the meal she’d cooked the previous afternoon and preparing it for the microwave. Tonight it was enchiladas and for once they weren’t even a little burnt.

The dull whirring of the microwave was overtaken by the sound of a key turning. “You’re home early.” Luz grinned as her mother walked into the house and grabbed some silverware for the two of them.

Camilia chuckled as she set her bag down and returned Luz’s smile. “More like I’m just a little less late than usual.” She walked over to Luz anda gave the girl a kiss on the forehead before easing into her seat at the kitchen table. Luz got the plates from the microwave and set them down in front of her and her mom. “Gracias mija, this smells wonderful,” she said before they started eating.

This had pretty much been their routine since they’d moved here at the start of summer. Luz knew that the night shift hadn’t been easy on her mom at the hospital; she went in early, came back late, never took a day off, and came home practically dead on her feet. Cooking dinner was the least Luz could do and she knew her mom appreciated having one less thing to worry about.

They exchanged small talk for a while as they ate, Luz asked her mom about work and vice versa.

“Eda’s fine,” Luz responded, “but King tried to fight the raccoon again and ended up getting covered in trash.” She laughed at the memory.

Camilia smiled, then looked down at her plate. “And how are you feeling about school, it starts up in, what, two days now?”

Luz froze at the question, the food in her mouth seemed to lose its flavor as she swallowed. “Uh, yeah, I guess I’m ready. Ready as I’ll ever be, right?” She shoved a forkful of enchilada in her mouth and smiled, hoping her mom would leave it at that. If only she were that lucky.

Her mom placed her fork down on the plate. “Carino,” she placed her hand against Luz’s cheek, stroking the hairline with her thumb. “I know that you had some problems with people at your last school…”

Understatement of the century. Luz thought to herself but kept her smile pasted on.

“But this is a fresh start. A new chance to make friends and start looking into college. You’re still looking for schools with game design programs right? Who knows, you may even like it here.”

Luz took her mom’s hand in her own. “I do like it here mom. Eda’s a really awesome boss and I like working for her. And as for school...” She squeezed her mom’s hand and gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m gonna be okay Mama, I promise.”

Camilia squeezed her daughter’s hand back, she looked very relieved to hear that last part. “Thank you mija. Now, it’s late and you have work in the morning. Go to bed.”

“Okay, I’ll just take care of the dishes-”

“I’ve got them, go to bed.”

Luz knew better than to disobey that order. She smiled softly at her mother before getting up from the table and placing the plate in the sink. “Buenos noches, Mama,” she said as she gave her mom a kiss goodnight and walked off to her room. School started in two days, she really hoped it wouldn’t make her a liar.